Finding Firelight
by HerFairy
Summary: Lucy Heartfilia has a lot of reasons for attending summer camp, but getting spooked by campfire stories and falling in love with her best friend isn't one of them. (Nalu, modern summer camp au).
1. Chapter 1

dedicated to my friend Sara on tumblr!

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 **disclaimer:** I don't own Fairy Tail or any of the characters/information/plots related to it.

 **a/n:** it will contain light character spoilers (aka you learn about some characters mentioned here in the Tenrou Island arc since I don't think they are mentioned before that), but otherwise you should be fine.

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 **one:**

The bus lurched forward, bustling along the graveled road at breakneck speeds, leaving Lucy feeling queasy, but not nearly as much as the pink haired boy at the front of the bus. She winced for him, but turned her gaze out the window, knowing she couldn't help.

The trees passed in a blur of green and brown, stretching far above her head with interweaving branches blocking out the sun. Here and there, she could see pockets of sunlight, but overall, the forest made it dark and she crossed hers arms more tightly over chest, a shiver working down her spine. The bus moved too quickly to see, but she felt as though there were something behind the long line of tree trunks, watching her.

 _You've been reading too many horror stories_ , she scolded herself. How would her father allow her to go next year if she came back home with nightmares this time? It had taken cunning and dedication, some letters from her friend about the camp, and some nudging from her maid, Virgo, before Jude had allowed her to come to camp Love and Lucky. She didn't know what the eccentric maid had said, but she guessed it had worked on her hard-headed, workaholic father more than Lucy's attempts or Natsu's letters.

Natsu Dragneel didn't really have a way with words. It had irked her a little when the camp first assigned him to be her pen pal as a way to encourage communication between peers so campers were more comfortable with their surroundings at Love and Lucky, but overtime she came to enjoy it. His words had a life of their own and deciphering them often left her feeling as though she were unraveling an ancient language overnight.

This friendship had started last year, back when she originally was supposed to go to camp, but Lucy's mother died before she could and after that, she didn't need a guide, she only needed a friend. Natsu had helped, more than perhaps he knew, and she wished, more than anything except to see her mother again, that he would be attending camp again this year.

Nobody stuck out as Natsu though. How did a loud, dense idiot not stand out from everyone else on the bus? The only conclusion she could make was the obvious one: Natsu wasn't here.

Her shoulder bumped into the window as the bus took an abrupt turn, her eyes blinded as they escaped a sky of dark foliage and entered into the bright sunshine. The bus shuddered once – perhaps it would explode – before stopping completely.

"Waah! We're here!" The pink haired boy yelped, his face green as he lurched to his feet, swaying like a drunk man. The difference between the novice campers and the newbies became apparently obvious when teens and kids crowded the windows, trying to take their first peek at the camp.

Lucy, of course, was proudly a newbie and she climbed onto the seat across the aisle, peeking out the window in awe.

The trees ended abruptly, as though the twisting branches and dense covers had been protecting the camp from intruders, and instead circled around the cabins like a fence of ferns. A glistening lake stretched across the grounds further ahead, so large that the cabins across it that belonged to a rival camp looked like mere dots. She couldn't see the dock, but she thought it was on the other side of a large, rickety cabin like structure directly to their left.

On the other hand, she could see the collection of smaller cabins dotted around the camp along a faint dirt trail. She thought that would be where she and whoever would be her roommates would be sleeping.

It was ordinary, exactly as she expected a camp to look, and more beautiful than she expected. Her eyes traced over the camp with a constricting heart and a lump growing in her throat, wondering which parts Layla Heartfilia had known. Did the trees and the lake mourn her as Lucy did? Did they remember her touch or had time taken the memory from them as time had taken it from Lucy?

She grabbed her travel bag off the seat, the last person to exit the bus. The dirt crunched beneath her feet, unnoticed as a white-haired girl interrupted any further thoughts. "Your luggage will be delivered to your cabin, please follow Erza to the mess hall for orientation."

"Man, again? We already know what to do," scoffed a boy in the process of removing of his sweater.

Erza turned out to be a girl not much older than Lucy with long red hair and the eyes of a monster as she turned an evil look to the boy who spoke. Instantly, the boy tensed and quieted, now beginning to strip off his shirt to the enthusiasm of a pale, blue-haired girl beside him.

There were no grumblings as Erza led a silent parade of kids her age to the mess hall, which surprised Lucy more than anything. The bus had been rambunctious and filled with talking, but something about Erza – perhaps the fact that she was a demon in disguise – quieted even the loudest person.

Maybe even Natsu would cower from her glare.

Lucy found her frightening – but then she ushered the group ahead of her into the rickety cabin Lucy had spotted earlier. Rather than follow them, Erza stayed behind and Lucy slowed her steps, making no attempts to hide her eavesdropping as Erza crouched beside a teary eyed young boy. Though Lucy couldn't hear her words, the softness on her face made Lucy reassess her a little more.

Then Erza straightened and Lucy hurried to catch up with the group because she didn't reassess her _that_ much.

"Wow," she murmured, "This is kind of…"

She didn't have a word for it except anticlimactic. The rickety cabin was filled with two long wooden benches on one side of the room and a little booth that Lucy guessed everyone collected their food from. It was woodsy, from the large beams supporting the ceiling, to the floor, to even the booth. It was also rather plain.

Erza entered the room and ordered everyone to sit down. The talking started up again, familiar faces seeking out other familiar faces, till Lucy could barely hear her own thinking, let alone try to strike a conversation with the people around her. As this was no different than home, she pulled out her notebook and scribbled more of her story.

Orientation seemed to take no time at all. A short, balding man told a story about the camp's origins that involved fighting a water dragon in the lake, recited off a list of rules that ranged from Do Not Kill Your Fellow Campers to Fights are Reserved for the Grand Games at the End of the Year, pointed out the list across the room with their cabin numbers, reminded them of the welcome festival tomorrow, and then sent everyone off to bed even though it felt like they had only been in there half an hour.

One glance outside told her it had been much longer because it was dark outside.

It wasn't late enough to sleep, but everyone still had to find their cabins.

A crowd surrounded the list, but Lucy elbowed her way to the front quite easily.

 _Heartfilia, L. – Cabin 13._

Her heart dropped. If the camp was called Love and Lucky, she figured that meant someone could be unlucky too and was there a number worse than 13?

…

There was absolutely nothing unusual about cabin 13. Even her roommates seemed normal: a petite girl named Levy, a bikini-clad girl named Cana, and Erza Scarlet.

Yup, that Erza…

Sleeping with Erza Scarlet in the next bed over was the reason that Lucy had such an unsettling night of rest. Or the uncomfortable beds, or the murmur of voices that woke her up, or just the disconcerting feeling that waking up in a new placed provoked in her. Either way, she slept badly and she didn't know how could muster up the energy to be in a festival.

Her groggy state lasted only until the end of breakfast when – abruptly – Erza slammed her cup down on the table, bellowing across the room, "NATSU! GRAY!" Two boys brawling immediately separated and hugged each other with frightened smiles on their faces.

Lucy didn't hear whatever they said to Erza, her wide eyes locked on the two boys. _Natsu?_ One was dark haired and shirtless for some reason – the other was the pink-haired boy who had gotten motion sickness on the way over.

Which one was Natsu though? Shirtless boy or motion sickness boy? She thought it was the shirtless boy, because brave, strong Natsu didn't seem like the type of person to get motion sickness and yet the shirtless boy didn't look much like a Natsu either, his features to cold and expressionless for someone like the boy in her letters. The pink haired boy looked wild enough to be Natsu, she thought.

Both were glaring mutinously at the other while Erza berated them for making fools of themselves when Lucy approached.

"Lucy, don't follow their lead," said Erza suddenly, spotting Lucy from the corner of her eye.

Lucy faltered and both boys looked at her speculatively. "E-eh? Okay?"

"Lucy?" the pink haired boy said, tilting his head. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

The dark haired muttered something about an idiot under his breath.

"THE HELL DID YOU SAY, ICE PRINCESS?" the pink haired boy said harshly, whirling to face him.

"Natsu," Erza warned. Natsu stopped, turning to them, but Lucy couldn't think of anything, her thoughts completely derailed.

 _Natsu._ Pink hair, sharp teeth, and onyx eyes. A tiny furrow in his brow as he studied her for that something he couldn't remember. His arms were crossed now that he wasn't fighting the other one – Gray – and she noticed they were strong and muscular, surprising for someone so thin. She tried not to ogle him, but couldn't stop herself from drinking up the sight of him.

"Lucy?" Erza asked, confused by the sudden, awkward silence as both teens stared at each other.

Natsu, her friend. Natsu, who she didn't think would be here.

Natsu, who was the second reason that Lucy tried so hard to come to camp. Natsu, who continued writing letters to her a year ago when she was nothing more than a stranger in need of a friend.

Natsu, who had prodded her into giving her skype and then, later, her phone number so they could talk outside letters.

Natsu, who looked at her now with wide onyx eyes, recognizing her at last.

 _Wait…_

"YOU DON'T REMEMBER MY NAME?"

...

The group roared with laughter as Erza retold the story later that night. Natsu and Lucy sat quietly at the furthest edge from the fire and didn't notice till everyone laughed that the story had been about them. Both jolted, looking over at the group, who were watching them with a mix of amusement and wicked grins, as though they thought the two were being cute.

In reality, they were arguing about the other's handwriting, debating which one wrote like an animal and which wrote like they were using the wrong hand. Not a legitimate argument, nothing that would break their friendship, but a sort of careful prodding around a topic that neither knew how to examine properly.

Argument broken, Lucy flushed, playing with her fingers in her lap. Levy smiled brightly at her, giving her a thumbs-up in reference to something that Lucy didn't understand, but she guessed was about winning the argument.

Except she didn't win.

"Draw?" Natsu ventured, eyes flickering to her face then back to the fire.

"Draw."

It was the second night of camp and the warm weather had disappeared within minutes of the sun descending, leaving the remaining campers scrambling to their cabins or to the bonfires scattered around camp. There were camp leaders at each one to keep the campers under control – Erza at this one, Mira at another, and some man named Gildarts at the last. In the distance, she could hear the melodious voice of Mira and her group drifting over to them and, further away, she could hear the howling laughter from Gildarts group.

It was peaceful even if Natsu and Lucy were awkward.

The group had moved on to talk about something else. She struggled to think of something to say, but nothing fit. Should she thank him? Should she hug him? Lucy had known Natsu for over a year now, making him her longest and oldest friend, and this was her first time meeting him in person.

"Remember when we talked on skype the first time? We didn't really say anything, I just wrote and you did… whatever you do, draw maybe, and it was a little awkward at first?" Lucy asked as the memory occurred to her, recalling their first call on skype.

"Yeah?"

"Happy jumped on your laptop and knocked it out of your lap. I remember you swearing and Happy sounded pleased with himself."

"You laughed at me," he said, sounding unbothered by this fact.

"It was funny," she said, grinning. "You don't swear in writing."

"You don't yell in writing."

"I don't yell."

"Do you have memory loss I need to know about?"

"Says the one who forgot my name."

"I didn't think you were coming!"

"I told you I was coming in my last letter!"

Natsu stopped suddenly and she could have sworn his face was red, but, no, it was just the flickering fire on his face. "I didn't read it," he admitted and she tried not to feel hurt. His letters had been a life-line for her, she read them as soon as she got them regardless of most other obligations – which were none, but still.

"Oh," she said, frowning.

"I'll read it with the rest of my letters," he continued, not noticing.

"Rest of your letters? How many people do you know?"

"I know a lot of people! Like… there's the book girl!"

"Levy," Lucy corrected.

"Yeah."

"You have a letter from Levy, too?"

He laughed. "No, weirdo, why would I have a letter from Levy?"

"But I thought you said!" Or had he been answering the second question only? Did that mean he didn't have letters from other people? It was ridiculous to feel special knowing she was one of the few people who sent him letters and yet she couldn't deny the strange disappointment at the idea that he got some from tons of people.

"We should get mail in a few days, I'll read yours with my dad's. Then I won't have Droopy Eyes reading over my shoulder," he said, punching his hand.

Lucy held her breath. If all had gone to plan, she would be reading a letter from her mother and father in a few days too, one that detailed the camp as Layla Heartfilia remembered it and recommendations of where Lucy would go, then updates of how things were at home. Lucy would only have been gone for a few days yet the sight of her mother's handwriting would make her ache for home.

In a few days, she would get nothing. No mother left to send a letter; no father that cared to bother. She pressed a hand to her aching heart, but it wasn't from a longing for home so much as the longing for her old life and she struggled valiantly for the sound of Layla's voice in her memory.

"Lucy?"

She blinked and Natsu's face appeared in her vision. His brows were scrunched thoughtfully, a look she hadn't seen on his face the entire time she had known him. "Yes?"

He narrowed his eyes and her own widened, afraid that her thoughts had played across her face. They were too strong, too unspeakable, for Lucy to tell anyone, not even Natsu, even if she wouldn't have hesitated in one of their letters. "You were making a weirder than usual face." She scowled at him, preparing to retort, but he abruptly stood up. "Come on, I think they are telling scary stories. The fire will help you feel better, too."

She didn't know how to respond to that so she followed him. They chose the only free space around the fire, which unfortunately allowed the wind to blow smoke into their faces. Natsu didn't mind, but Lucy squinted, tilting her body away.

Natsu was right, they were telling scary stories. Gray just finished up a tale of something grabbing his leg in the lake last year – Natsu sniggered, she guessed the monster in this tale was him – and nearly drowned him, but how he escaped. The ending wasn't scary, but the rest of it must have been because she could see the look of horror on Levy's face.

Cana laughed when Gray finished. "We've heard a ghost story and a mermaid in the lake," she said, counting it off on her fingers, her body swaying slightly. Natsu made a noise about the mermaid, pouting when Lucy nudged him with a snicker and his retort cut off when Cana continued. "My turn, I'll tell you the best story."

"And the last," Erza said, eyeing the dark sky as though she could harm it for ruining a pleasant evening.

"Best?" Gray asked, outraged.

"Yup. Best. Because this one is actually true," Cana said, smirking, leaning her elbows on her knees. "Have you guys heard of the monster Acnologia?"

"Acno-luigi?" Natsu repeated.

"Why do you get Luigi from anything that has an L in it?" Lucy wondered, remembering one of his letters where he had started it out as _Yo, Luigi!_

Natsu shrugged and beamed. "Anything with an L in it makes me think of you."

She narrowed her eyes. It sounded sweet, but loser had an L in it, too.

"Flirt later!" Cana ordered. "Stare in the flames for a minute, you need to be properly prepared for this one." She eyed everyone till they followed her command. Lucy stared into the flames, forehead ticking as the smoke blew into her face. Natsu had no such troubles, leaning his elbows on his knees to watch the flickering light.

"Breathe deeply, forget everything except the flames and the sound of my voice."

Lucy frowned. Meditating hadn't ever been an art that she picked up before, not even when her tutors did practicing for it, and she questioned whether she could do it now. She breathed – and coughed. Absently, she felt a warm hand on her back, patting her till her lungs were clear and her eyes twitched to the left, where Natsu sat. His eyes were on the flames, his face oddly calm as though lost in trance, but his hand didn't move from her.

Clearing her throat, Lucy tried again. As Cana began her story, she didn't even notice when the smoke burning her eyes and lungs faded, when the hand on her back faltered, so focused on the sound of Cana's voice that she could feel and see nothing else.

"Before this was called Love and Lucky, it was called _Fairy Tail_!"

 _The final day of camp crept over Fairy Tail at the exact same time a summer storm began to hit them. Dark clouds blotted out the setting sun and with it, the warmth of the day faded, leaving the campers to scuttle to their cabins. A brisk, cold wind flew through the barricade of trees, ruffling the long hair of a short, pale haired girl. Girl would be the wrong word for her as this person was named Mavis and she was the first camp master. Though many of the campers were her size or larger, Mavis commanded respect and attention, her mind a brilliant combination of strategy and leadership._

 _She crossed her arms over her chest, watching the camp with the look of someone lost in thought. For good reason, too as this was Fairy Tail's first session and already the camp was risking closure. Two campers had vanished from their hiking groups in a two-day period and while the police with volunteers combed the woods for survivors, Mavis cancelled all trips into the forest outside of searching._

 _However, just that morning, Hades – her second in command - informed her that another camper had gone missing, directly from their cabin this time. Her roommates were moved to other groups while the cabin was cornered off until the police could investigate tomorrow morning. Mavis hadn't seen the cabin yet, trusting Hades' word, but a wary, instinctive part of her needed to know._

 _Mavis trusted her feelings._

 _She waited till the camp was silent, the sun long gone and the fire only embers, and then began her trek to the missing camper's cabin. She ducked under the tape, her bare feet silent on the wooden steps and the door opened without a single noise to betray her; she flicked on a flashlight, blinking her eyes to adjust. The clouds blocked the moon, preventing her from seeing anything outside of the beam of light._

 _A sick feeling built up in her stomach at the inside of the cabin._

 _The missing camper's bed was indistinguishable from the other three – except for the bloodied, ruffled sheets and the scattered glass on the floor around it. She held her breath, stepping further inside, wary of wayward glass and flicked her light around the cabin for anything else amiss, when something caught the corner of her eye._

 _Beneath the dirt and grime of the wilderness, the windowsill was crushed as though something large and sharp had gripped the ledge. She crept closer, letting out a little gasp of air as she spotted a trail of blood leading from the bed to the window. The window itself looked strange, as though a large tree branch had broken through it and broken the frame, but the mangled mess left behind didn't hide the bloodied print._

 _As though someone had grabbed the window in a vain attempt to escape whatever held them._

 _It led outside._

 _Mavis felt a kindle of hope. Perhaps her camper was still alive. Perhaps she could save them. She left the cabin calmly; she had spent so long inside that the weather had worsened, becoming a steady downstream of water. When she arrived back, she would have to tell someone to watch the lake in case it flooded from the rain, but that was only an absent thought. With the storm as her cover, Mavis darted into the woods, following the trail of blood._

 _Deeper and deeper into the woods she went; the lights from camp were swallowed up in the darkness, leaving nothing but her own footsteps and the beam of light as her companions. Mavis felt trepidation, not for her own well-being, but for the thickening blood trail that was her guide and the person to whom it betrayed. She climbed over a fallen tree, so disguised by the moss and grass that it looked little more than a lump among the trees, and appeared in a clearing of blooming flowers. The rain had fallen to a light drizzle, the wet grass squishing beneath her feet till Mavis jerked to a stop._

 _A person lay in the center of the field, the moonlight shining down on the pale features of their face, the flowers swaying in time with Mavis' breath._

 _"No," she murmured, a sick feeling building in her and she forced her legs to approach. The person was a light-haired girl dressed in tattered scarlet pajamas, blood oozing—_

"CANA!"

"Sheesh, fine!"

 _The girl was dead, Mavis didn't need to examine her any closer to know, but her sightless eyes made the sorrow nearly unbearable and she lowered the girl's eyelids. For all her stillness, she might have been asleep. "We will remember you," Mavis murmured sadly, gritting her teeth against the furious tears welling in her eyes._

 _She swallowed it back. One girl down, but there were other campers missing and Mavis knew that the marks on the girl's body were not from any bear or cougar. No, the marks weren't from anything native to this forest; Mavis could sense the malice in the woods and her eyes traced the gouged marks in the dirt around her, the markings similar to those on the windowsill and only just now reminding her of a footprint._

 _A footprint of something large. A footprint of something sharp, capable of breaking a window and dragging a girl from her bed without alerting anyone else in the camp._

 _Something that could steal two campers without a sound._

 _A monster._

 _But…_

 _Mavis eyed the trees around her critically and then back to the girl. She regretted telling no one of her actions or of her motives; she wouldn't be able to wait for someone to find her and she wouldn't be able to take the girl with her._

 _Sadly, but promising to be back swifter than any gazelle, Mavis made to leave the clearing._

 _The weather protested her departure, sending up a gust of wind that spewed dust and fallen twigs from the forest into her face. As she blinked her eyes clear, she heard it. A low, pain filled moaning. A sickening snap. Abrupt, eerie silence._

 _A shadow edged into the clearing and a large, monstrous figured appeared on the edge. It didn't make a sound, not with its footsteps nor with the shape – a person, she realized with horrifying certainty - it dragged behind it, till it tossed the person right into the clearing beside the girl._

 _Like a presentation to the moon. Like a presentation to her._

 _Look who you failed to protect._

 _Look at the lost children's future._

 _Look._

 _Look at me._

 _Mavis looked at it, obeying its command. Her eyes widened at the creature that stared back at her. The creature opened its mouth –_

The fire exploded, jolting Lucy from the story and only the hand on her back kept her from toppling back out of her seat. Cana, her face deadly serious despite the amused light of her eyes, tossed something else in the flames; it sparked violently.

"It opened its mouth and spewed flames. Mavis and her missing campers were swallowed in the onslaught, their remains never found, and lurking in these very woods is the monster that claimed them, the one hungry for flesh, the one that Hades called Acnologia. After her demise, the camp was remained Love and Lucky, in honor of those who died and those survived to tell the tale," Cana said, finishing the story.

Her ending was met with an awkward silence. Lucy applauded, echoed by the rest as they recovered from their shock.

"That was a good one," commented Levy, shivering. "I swear I thought somebody was watching me."

Lucy didn't comment that two boys named Droy and Jet were doing just that; their fixation with her friend was strange, but so far it seemed harmless and Levy seemed either blissfully unaware – or so used to the attention that she no longer thought much of it. She couldn't tell – and Lucy was definitely not ignoring the near heart attack that occurred from Cana's story.

What a horrible story, she thought, eyeing the fluttering trees in the distance with distaste. An untrue, horrible story. One that was, she knew, partially true – Love and Lucky had been called Fairy Tail; the first camp leader had gone missing along with some of her campers; their remains had never been found.

The idea of a monster behind it was preposterous, though. Lucy sighed, forcing her heart to calm down, knowing it was the flow of Cana's words and the trick with the fire that had scared her. Tomorrow, she wouldn't think anything of it. Unfortunately, that was tomorrow and it was tonight, a dark moonless night that made the story all the creepier.

Natsu leaned close to her. Her breath caught, wondering – foolishly – if he noticed her fear, if he would comfort her. "She got you good," said Natsu, sniggering. She scowled, nudging his shoulder with hers, because this was Natsu and he didn't do comfort like a romantic lead.

"She got you too!" Except Lucy hadn't been paying attention much to his reaction. Surely if the story hadn't scared him, the fire would have – no wonder Cana wanted them to stare so deeply into it.

"Nope."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too!"

"Why would I be scared of fire?" Natsu scoffed and, to prove his point, plunged his hand in the fire.

Or would have if Lucy hadn't grabbed his wrist at the last moment, jerking it back away from the flame. "ARE YOU CRAZY?" Lucy exclaimed. "Are you trying to become Captain Hook?"

"Captain Hook? Sheesh weirdo, I wasn't going to put my hand in there."

"What? Then why did you grab it?"

"Not to burn my hand off, obviously."

Before Lucy could retort – obviously with something immensely clever – Erza stepped into the conversation. "Will you two continue your confessions later and help the rest of us clean up?"

Natsu blinked. Lucy did as well. During their squabble, the rest of them had been gathering their belongings and cleaning up around the campfire; she could see the other groups doing the same or doing a strange sacrificial dance, she wasn't sure, more likely the former since this was a camp and not a cult.

Erza cleared her throat pointedly.

Lucy leapt to her feet, releasing Natsu's hand with a flush. "It—it wasn't a confession! I was just—and he was—and it wasn't!"

"Of course," Erza allowed in a voice that didn't sound believing. "Clean up, lights out in twenty minutes."

"Aye," Lucy said clearly, back straight at the shift in Erza's eyes. When she focused her attention on some other poor unfortunate soul – sorry Jet – Lucy let out a breath. Natsu still stood straight, his eyes pinched and Lucy giggled at the discomfort on his face as he obeyed orders. "So, you clean up here, I'll clean up where we sat before?"

"Fine," he replied, shoulders dropping.

Considering they had only devoured a burger at their previous spot, there was very little for Lucy to clean and she was done within a minute, waiting for Natsu to finish his equally empty spot. By then, the campfire was empty, the flames doused and only a single curl of smoke clinging to the last of its life to say that a fire had been there recently.

It was too dark. No moon, no fire, and only a few lanterns dotted along a trail to the cabins.

She remembered Cana's story and then shivered. From the cold air, of course, and the knowledge that her cabin was the closest to the forest.

"C'mon," Natsu said, his hands folded into his pockets as he started toward the end of the camp.

"Your cabin is that way," Lucy pointed out, thumb pointing behind them. His was closer to the lake, lucky him.

"I'm walking you to yours," he said, laughing.

"Why?"

His words were a joke, she could see from the quirk of his lips, but there was something else that Lucy couldn't decipher. "I wouldn't want a monster to eat you." Honesty. She thought that might be the thing she couldn't figure out, even if she couldn't tell what that meant. Maybe it didn't mean anything.

Natsu didn't hide what he felt and he didn't sugar coat it either; they came out as he felt them and when he felt them, no more and no less, and she wondered if his prodding earlier had been his way of comforting her. Not with sugary words of a shoujo lead, but the way Natsu would: with laughter and teasing, with his friendship and his company.

That was like him – both the one in the letters and the stranger that was him in person. Except, he was less of a stranger now, as though his words had started to push the two opposing images of him – the one that had been her best friend through the worst year of her life and the one she had met in person for the first time ever – together.

Or Lucy was thinking far too much about a playful comment.

"Hey, Natsu?" She ventured, going on faith with her heart beating fast.

"Yeah?"

"I wouldn't want you to be eaten by a monster either."

He smiled at her and she felt as though she got it right.

* * *

 **please review, thank you!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Finding Firelight**

* * *

 **two:**

She guessed it was because Cabin 13 was so close to the tree line that she started sleeping badly again. As scary stories hadn't ever frightened her before, she was reluctant to admit that Cana's story might have – slightly – frightened her into having twisted, horrible nightmares off and on the entire night. Then again, Lucy had always been under the lock and key of her father, who might have been emotionally deficient in the last year, but could be counted on to lock the doors and keep security on their estate.

There was nothing to fear with Laxus Dreyar on duty except for Laxus himself.

To reiterate: Cabin 13 was too close to the tree line, Lucy was a chicken, and there was something spooky going on outside their cabin last night. It was the only possible combination that made any sense to her.

She didn't mention any of her worries when Cana questioned the perturbed look on Lucy's face. Lucy didn't reply so much as squint at Cana till she laughed and left to change as well, no doubt supplying her own reasons for Lucy's troubles.

Relieved, Lucy left the cabin. Nothing in her wanted to explain how the rustling of the trees had scared her awake, or how she thought she heard footsteps but when she peeked outside, she saw nothing. She didn't want to say the cabin was haunted, but the cabin was _definitely haunted._

She hesitated, a wordless desire to see the side of the cabin, but stronger than that was the desire to see Natsu again. If anyone could chase away the chills of her overactive imagination, it would be him. If there was anyone who would listen and not make her think she's weird – even if he often called her a weirdo for things less weird than this – for being frightened, it would be him.

She sighed, rubbing her face and continuing away from her cabin, adjusting the white and pink bikini she wore. It was cute and comfortable, a major plus in her opinion, and best of all, it held her boobs in with only a slight risk of exposure. A double knot ensured that it wouldn't come undone and she undid her hair, letting it cascade around her shoulders, as though the weight of it would hold her top in place.

It would be her luck to flash everyone on her first time at the lake.

Natsu grinned at her from across the way. His pink hair was a mess, as though his attempts at combing it had been to run his hands through it, and his eyes were alight with excitement. She fought a giggle at his swim shorts which consisted of white with dark red flames up the sides. Just the sight of him made her feel better, like someone had shown a light on her nightmares and sent them away.

"Lucy! C'mon!"

"I thought we were meeting there?" She asked when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along.

"You were taking too long and I want to get there already, we're going swimming!"

Lucy saw two critical flaws in this.

"That pervert thinks he's going to beat me in a race," Natsu said, throwing his spare fist in the air as though he had already won. She let out a breath, relieved to drop one of the flaws in his plan; the other remained a significant hurtle for him to cross. "Sucks Erza won't be there, I heard she got dragged into taking people for a hike."

"You say dragged like Erza was the one forced into it," she deadpanned, knowing for a fact that Erza had hoodwinked a few other people – Levy, for one – into going on a hike at the crack of dawn in the name of nature. "Nobody can drag Erza into doing something that she doesn't want to do."

Natsu shrugged. "If I told her she couldn't do something, she would do it."

Lucy thought about that. Some of Erza's most prominent traits were her protectiveness, her strength, and her opinions; it wasn't a huge leap to think that she would be fueled by spite to prove someone wrong. "If it goes against her morals, she won't, she's very…" She struggled to think of a specific word to describe Erza.

"Aggressive." Natsu snorted.

"Passionate," Lucy corrected, smiling. "But otherwise… True."

The lake came into view. "Hey, Natsu?" She held his wrist, preparing to dig her feet to keep him from dragging her along, but at her words, he stopped quite easily, tilting his head at her. "Uhm." His eyes were dark and quizzical, but patient, which was a word that she wouldn't have attached to Natsu, not the one in her letters and not the one she met on the first day of camp.

"Lucy?"

Oh, right.

"Can you swim without getting motion sick?"

He opened his mouth and then closed it, his face looking slightly green. "Yup, no problem."

"Umm…" she said, not entirely believing the look on his face, but he started jogging again, pulling her with him. The angle of the sun blinded them as they skidded to a stop at the blue-green water of the lake. The grass edged right up to the water, ending abruptly at some discolored rocks along the edge of the water, announcing the sudden change from pointy grass to soft, wet sand.

Gray stood on the edge in a pair of dark blue shorts, doing elaborate stretches in ankle deep water. He wasn't the only person by the lake though; either the race or the sight of Gray's athletic body had gathered a crowd, the most noticeable of which was the same pale blue-haired girl that Lucy remembered vaguely as Juvia, who was wiggling in the water, her cheeks pink as she ogled him in her pretty blue bathing suit. Two other girls stood beside her, one silver-haired wearing purple and the other with long green hair in daring red, though she didn't actually know either of their names yet, and a red-eyed boy building a mud castle in the shallow water. She cringed at the disgruntled look on his face, turning to face her friend.

Natsu dropped her wrist, jumping over the rocks – even though that seemed like a waste of effort when Lucy could easily step over them – and began to do his own stretches. "Good luck," she said, kicking off her flipflops.

A grin crept over his face. "Thanks."

"I was talking to Gray," she teased.

Natsu spluttered, annoyed, and Juvia muttered something under her breath about a love rival, but Lucy ignored both, stepping away from the now arguing boys – about how badly they stretched, of all reasons – to the edge of the water, not far from the boy's sandcastle. The cold water sent a chill through her as she lowered herself to the least rocky part of the floor. The boy sent her a glare for blocking the flow of the water and she wiggled around to let some reach him, but didn't dare go deeper into the lake and settled for smiling apologetically.

It was an oversight on her part to go to camp and not expect to swim. Truthfully, she never learned, it hadn't been important growing up. She smiled sadly at nothing, remembering her mother trying to teach her the year before, back when they were sure that the camp was in her immediate future. It only had been one afternoon in the pool, where Lucy had learned to somewhat float, before her mother's illness had reared its ugly head. She hadn't been near a pool since then…

Her mother had learned here though, she thought, perking up. Her favorite tale about the camp was when Layla had learned to swim as a child because her mother had painted a colorful story of an aqua-haired, bad-tempered mermaid who had taught her. Lucy's aunt Aquarius had scoffed, but not argued and Lucy had giggled. She had only seen Aquarius twice since her mother died: at the funeral and later, when Lucy had visited her mother's grave.

But if her mother learned here, it wouldn't be that strange if Lucy did too, right? Maybe she would meet a best friend the way her mother had! Or… She eyed Natsu thoughtfully as he stretched his arms above his head, back facing her. Would he…?

"Start your damn race, Salamander!" barked the boy building the sandcastle.

"Shut up, metal head! You're not even racing!"

"Tch, I would win, don't need to waste my time."

"I think you'd get too sick to do it, Gajeel," Gray sniggered. "I probably won't even have to do much, just float to victory when Flame Brains over here passes out. Oi, you, Lucy, will you save him when he starts to drown?"

Lucy blushed. She had hoped, perhaps futilely, that she could pull Natsu away later and he could teach her while everyone was at lunch. Scratch that. Maybe not lunch, considering his love for food, but Lucy didn't want _everyone_ to know about her inability to tread in water.

Thankfully, Gajeel didn't allow for a response, shooting to his feet. "Don't compare me to that idiot!" Oddly enough, his shorts were the reverse of Natsu: red with grey-white flames.

"I didn't, it's impossible to compare stupid and pathetic."

Lucy winced, not for the cruel yet characteristics words for the brawling boys, but for the two fists that slammed into Gray's face the moment the words left his lips. He flailed, falling back into the water while Juvia screeched something incomprehensible, and then he shot to his feet, butting heads with both boys simultaneously.

"Start racing already," urged the silver-haired girl. "Bisca is supposed to teach me to skip rocks."

"I don't think Master would be pleased if we practiced while people were in the water, Lisanna."

"I know, that's why I want them to hurry! Besides, we already know who is going to win."

Both the boys ignored them, but Lucy tuned in, tilting her body to face them. The two girls were sitting crossed legs, the water up to their belly buttons and their amused eyes watching the three boys with only mild interest.

"Hm, I don't know, Gajeel is pretty steamed, might give him a boost," Bisca mused, reclining back on her hands. Lisanna hummed thoughtfully, studying the three boys before nodding in agreement.

As they mused on who would win, Lucy returned to watching the three boys. She had expected Gray to win, truthfully, because he seemed more in his element in the water than Natsu and Gajeel seemed too bulky to manage the same speeds as either of the other two. But the look on Natsu's face, the determination that lurked behind his cheerful grin, made her think it would be wise not to underestimate him. Likewise, Gajeel had a scowl on his face, one that promised vengeance for the slight against his pride.

It could have been either of them.

"Good luck, Natsu," she murmured under her breath, drawing her legs beneath her to watch. His eyes flickered to hers, catching her words and a breathtaking grin crossed his face.

Bisca threw a rock that landed with a wicked crack against the water and then the boys were off.

"Lucy, right?" Lisanna asked, smiling as the boys splashed into action. "I haven't seen you here before."

"First year," she replied, only flashing Lisanna a smile in return before resuming to watch Natsu. Gray was on his left and Gajeel was on his right, the water splashing into his face with each dive of the other boys' arms and Lucy giggled at the distaste visible on his face even from this distance. "Where are they racing to anyway?"

Lisanna squinted. "Well, since Erza isn't here, they might try to swim all the way across."

"What? No, can they even make it that far before they tired?" Love and Lucky shared their lake with some other camp, though they were on complete other sides of a vast, deadly water. It was ridiculous to assume anyone could make it across without tiring out. Luckily for them, the lake held no boats or wave-riders, so they were at least spared a grisly decapitation. "Will they be alright?"

Bisca sighed. "I think they'll stop at the buoys, it wouldn't be like them to pick a fight with the other camp."

"You do realize who is racing, don't you?" Lisanna asked dryly.

"Natsu alone would try to fight," Lucy agreed, laughing. The boys were too far to see their faces anymore, just three figures who grew smaller and farther by the second. "I can only imagine that Gajeel and Gray won't help, they seem very… competitive."

"It's because Gray and Natsu have been at the camp the longest, they've always butted heads. Gajeel enjoys the ruckus, especially since he's Natsu's cousin," Lisanna said, running her hands along the top of the water. The race held no interest to her, the results of countless races and countless summers over the years, and Lucy held back a smile when Lisanna continued looking down, even when the boys began to shout at each other, their voices carrying across the water.

"Gajeel is related to Natsu? I don't see the resemblance." Then, thinking it over, she amended, "The physical resemblance, I guess Gajeel is loud like Natsu."

Lisanna giggled. "Yup, they only found out like a year ago."

Lucy almost asked how they wouldn't have known about that, but bit her tongue before it could escape. Natsu didn't much talk about his life – at least not about subjects he deemed sad or unimportant – but she knew from hints and references that he was adopted by a kind couple when he was a child. But, then, did that make Gajeel his actual cousin? She shook her head, deciding to ask him later, and turned completely to face Lisanna, trying to think of an adequate response to Lisanna's words. "So, have you been here a lot too?"

"Since I was a child. Mirajane is actually my sister," she said proudly. Lucy gaped and then nearly slapped her forehead. Of course! She could see their resemblance plain as day, the two could be twins if not for Lisanna's sharper features. "We come every summer! This is your first year, right? You'll have to go hiking with me, I know some spots that would be great for pictures to take back home!"

Lucy beamed. "That would be great! I've taken some around the camp, but I haven't gone hiking yet, I was waiting for the beginner's course later today."

"I'm supposed to do the crafting with my brother," Lisanna said, disappointed.

Lucy's shoulders slumped. "Oh, okay, we'll have to try next time."

"Definitely, the hiking is one of the best parts. One of the more advanced courses takes you up there - the view is so beautiful." Lucy followed her finger to a mountain jutting out from the woods; she tilted her head back just to see the top, vaguely able to make out some figures standing on top of it. She bit her lip – that high up would offer some impressive sights of the lake and camp, but… It was so high up that Lucy wondered how someone even got up there.

One of the figures jumped off and she clapped a hand over her mouth with a horrified gasp.

Bisca jolted out the sound, dropping a pile of rocks into the water beside Lisanna. "What?" She looked over at the cliff as well then let out a breath. "Oh, it's just Alzack, he went hiking with Gildarts' group earlier."

"You can see who that is?" Lucy asked, dropping her hand when neither girl seemed bothered. The figure – Alzack – disappeared beneath the water, but considering no one screamed in panic, she imagined he popped up again for air a moment later.

"This one has eyes like a hawk – especially when it comes to Alzack," Lisanna said with a grin. Bisca turned red, throwing her arm out to splash Lisanna in retaliation, proving Lisanna right without using any words.

Lucy giggled. "Well, is he going to be okay?"

"He'll be fine, Gildarts makes everyone jump off. It's why that course is the advanced one," Bisca explained, a proud smile on her face. "He only takes a select few with him because the only way down safely is, well, that." As they spoke, another person leapt off, their squeal echoing across the lake.

"Has Natsu done it before?"

"Not yet, but I'm going to this year!"

She jolted with a yelp, falling back against his legs. Natsu blinked, looking down at her startled face before he burst out laughing.

"You should have seen the look on your face!" He snorted, his pink hair sticking to his forehead as a drop of water traced its way down his face.

"Shut up," she muttered, straightening up. "You scared me, that's all."

"Think I was a monster coming to get you?"

She recalled Gray's story the day before – and Cana's comment about it. Her lips twitched. "I don't know, are you a mermaid?"

Natsu huffed. "I would be a merman, thank you."

"Sorry, the rules don't work that way, it's mermaid or nothing."

"Who says you make the rules?"

"I did. I made the rules. The rules are now made, so there," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. He dropped down into the sand beside her with a pout that made her laugh. "So who won?"

"I did," he said, echoed by Gajeel and Gray. Natsu frowned. "What are you talking about, Lugnuts? I won."

"No," said Gajeel.

"I did!"

"I got to the buoy first!" Gray argued.

"Gray, your pants," Lisanna laughed, covering her eyes while Lucy and Bisca averted their gazes. Juvia, who had been silent up until that point, nearly fainted at the sight of his naked figure.

Natsu rolled his eyes. "Pervert."

"Who went to the buoys?" said a dark, deadly voice. The group all whirled around, facing Erza. Her scarlet hair was swept up into a pony-tail, tendrils escaping from her hike, and Lucy would have thought her yellow bikini would have been beautiful if the look of annoyance on her face hadn't made her relation to demons quite apparent.

She had a knack for looking evil when she wanted to, Lucy wondered where she learned to do that. Maybe that was one of the courses at the camp: how to scare people 101.

Before she could ask, Natsu shot to his feet, jerking her up with him. "Run, Lucy!"

"Why am I running?" She muttered, but followed him without much of a choice. He released her hand as she stumbled and she adjusted her stance, sprinting with him along the edge of the lake, their footsteps kicking up sand and water. Distantly, there was a splash and a yelp from Gray as he escaped from the scene as well.

"Where did Gajeel go?" Lisanna asked, her voice nothing more than a faint laugh the farther away Lucy ran.

As Lucy caught up to Natsu, his hand catching hers instinctively once more, she giggled.

It was sometime later, during which he dragged her through some of the trees on the edge of the lake and then over a small outcropping of rocks, before he skidded to a stop. He dropped her hand and flopped down into the sand face first with a sigh of relief.

"Where are we?" She mumbled, nursing a stitch in her side. It had been a while since she had run so fast or for so long, especially over obstacles, more reason than any that she should start with beginners hiking and work her way up to the big leagues. Well, maybe not with Gildarts, she didn't know if she would ever be ready for making a leap off a cliff.

"Not that far, camp is through there," he replied, not winded in the slightest he jutted his chin over to a pair of misshapen trees whose branches were arched like a walkway; it was the lone exit from the cove they stood in unless they went over the little hill like Natsu and Lucy had, which she didn't recommend if the small scraps on her hands and knees were anything to go on.

She hadn't seen this cove before. It was as though someone had cut out a part of the hill, allowing water to enter its stony embrace. It was peaceful, the type of place where Lucy would have thought people would have hoarded to themselves; it was far too small to share with the rest of the populace and maybe that was why she couldn't recall anyone showing her or telling her of it.

Natsu rolled on his back, reaching over to dip his fingers into the water and washing the sand from his face. "You did good for your first hike."

"Thanks, I'll bet I could go on an intermediate hike now," she joked, sinking down beside him and stretching her legs out so that her feet rested in the cool water. The sun blared down on them, warming her skin and she ducked her face away from it, inching closer to the water. "So… who did win really?"

"We got there at the same time, maybe. Think I won still, I got back to the beach first," he said, holding his hand out for a high five. She rolled her eyes, but smacked his palm with hers, sand sticking to her palm. "Next time, we're going all the way to the camp though. I think that's the only way to find out who's the best."

"Erza won't allow that, you know," Lucy pointed out.

"You'll distract her for us," he explained with a nod.

"Oh, will I?"

"Yup, you agreed to do it."

"How am I supposed to cheer you on if I'm keeping Erza busy?" She teased, laying down on her back, tilting her head to look toward him when he stayed silent.

Natsu frowned and she blushed. Maybe that was too presumptuous? Lucy didn't know what to make of their friendship, it wasn't quite the same as when they exchanged letters; she hadn't realized how big of a difference it was to talk with someone in person and talk to someone over a distance. It wasn't bad, she thought, because they skipped over the pleasantries that came with meeting someone for the first time, but they missed the little things. Like learning what their expressions meant, like knowing what not to say.

She opened her mouth to say she was joking – although she wasn't so sure that was true, even if her words had been teasing as she said it.

Natsu spoke instead. "Good point. Okay, we'll make Bisca do it."

Lucy sighed, oddly relieved. How stupidly attached was she already? "Who says Bisca will do it?"

"Alzack will ask her."

"Why will Alzack ask her?"

"Because he owes me one."

She eyed him. "What did you do?"

"Nothing horrible, sheesh. I just told him what flowers Bisca probably likes."

"How do you even know that?"

"She wears the same perfume all the time," he explained. "If she likes that smell, she must like the flowers too, right?"

Lucy didn't necessarily know if that was true or not, but she also didn't have much experience with picking flowers for another person. Most of the time, people gave _her_ flowers – and they didn't often take into consideration whether or not she would like them. It was about whether her father would like Lucy receiving them or whether it would be that they coincidentally matched someone's tie.

"Bisca will distract Erza and I'll cheer you on then," Lucy said.

"That works out better, we're a team, it's only right that we're together. Maybe we'll do a tag-team race, someone could wait out by the buoys and then we can do a switch for the other half of the race." He put his hand behind his head, cushioning his head from the pebbles and rocks digging into him.

Her heart sank. "Oh?" She asked faintly, scrambling for an excuse about why that wouldn't work without spitting out her pathetic inability to swim. Her eyes flashed between him and the water, fingers tapping against the sand, waiting for something, anything, to come to mind. Her momentary thought of asking him vanished, not wanting to admit to her failings if it garnered his disappointment. "I don't think that'll work. I mean, whoever is waiting at the buoys will have a disadvantage from swimming out there, right? They'll be too tired to swim and someone will complain about the results being inconclusive."

"Oh." He frowned again, clearly agreeing with her. She let out another sigh of relief, not noticing the way his eyes darted to her with confusion. "Well, maybe we can— "

"NATSU DRAGNEEL! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT HERE!"

Natsu and Lucy flinched, eyes staring at each in horror as Erza appeared in the archway, her brows narrowed in displeasure. Despite the fact that she had definitely sprinted to them, her body didn't betray her by panting.

"You know you're not supposed to swim out that far, it's against the rules. Time to face your punishment," Erza said without pity, her eyes fiery.

Natsu gulped, darting his gaze between Erza and the water, as though he wasn't sure whether he would rather test the unfamiliar terrain on the outer edge of the cove or Erza's wrath.

Lucy rolled her eyes the instant he leaped for the water with Erza right behind him, but smiled fondly nonetheless, her nightmares a distant memory.

* * *

 ** _Big thanks to all the responses I've received on this! If I didn't respond individually, I want you to know that I did read each one! Thanks to SomebodyElse1123, lady lutka, d0kipunch, moonlitemasq0812, Rubybird2329, and Crystalic Lotus for reviewing the previous chapter as well as all the people who favorited and followed!_**

 ** _Apologies for the repost of chapter two, an issue came up that I needed to fix!_**


	3. Chapter 3

**Finding Firelight**

* * *

 **three:**

 _"There's something magical about the camp, I just knew it the moment that I arrived," Layla said with a dreamy sigh, her fragile frame nearly swallowed up in her many blankets as a six-year-old Lucy sat patiently on the bed beside her. Her mama went through bouts of illness and this was the first time that a small, teary-eyed Lucy had seen her mother sick enough to be confined to her bed for the better part of a week._

 _No tears crossed Lucy's eyes though. Instead, her entire being brimmed with happiness as she listened to her mother's tale. Her mother's eyes closed as the story ended, a small breath escaping her as she fought against medicine induced sleepiness._

 _Lucy hesitated, afraid of waking her, but a question burned on her lips, "What does magic feel like?"_

 _Layla's eyes opened slowly. "It..." Her lips twitched, smiling softly. Her hand went to Lucy's head, stroking her daughter's short, blonde hair. Lucy leaned into her hand, smiling brightly at her mama's warm touch; it was the closest thing to a hug that Lucy had gotten in weeks while Layla fought a nasty illness. "Magic is something you feel here. In your heart."_

 _Lucy frowned, pressing a hand to her chest where she vaguely knew her heart resided. "Like love?"_

 _"Exactly like that, little one."_

 _"Will I feel it when I go there, mama?" A vision of dragons and magic sword fights flashed through her mind, bringing a delighted giggle to her lips._

 _"Only if you let it." Layla smiled, guessing what her daughter thought with stunning accuracy. Lucy's emotions had always played across her face, something Layla would comment for years to come. "It's not magic like wizards and witches, it won't grant you magic powers."_

 _"That would be fun though!"_

 _"Indeed, it would! But this is different. Don't shy away from it, Lucy, and you'll find it."_

 _Lucy didn't quite understand, but her mama never lied. "Okay, mama."_

 _"Lucy…"_

 _"Lucy…"_

 _"Lucy!"_

Lucy's jaw cracked as she yawned, trying to shy away from the hand on her shoulder and fall back into her dream. It had been a pleasant one, where her mother had spent hours telling Lucy stories despite Jude's demands for Layla to rest.

Someone shook her harder and the soft smile on Layla's face faded into her memory when Lucy snapped awake, narrowly avoiding a collision course with Erza's head as she sat up in her bunk. "Erza? What are you doing? It's… so early."

Erza sighed. "Did you forget your punishment?"

Memories from yesterday flooded through her and she gulped back her righteous anger, knowing that further argument would be a waste of breath. While Erza believed that Lucy hadn't swum to the docks, her fleeing along with Natsu had painted her as an accomplice, leaving Erza with no choice but to punish Lucy as well.

"Right," Lucy replied gruffly, swinging her legs out of the bunk and stretching. Erza waited for her, looking sympathetic and resigned, while Lucy wiggled on an old pink skirt and a red shirt.

"Wear your hair up," Erza instructed, offering a red hair tie. Lucy smiled thankfully, pulling her hair back and tying it tightly; it would give her a headache later, but she didn't want to constantly fidget with it for the day.

"What are we doing?" She wondered aloud, but Erza reminded quiet, merely escorting her out the door.

Erza led Lucy to the lake of the camp, where she could see the other three boys rubbing their eyes sleepily. Natsu stared directly into the sun, half asleep, eyes somehow perfectly alright despite the agony. He woke when the two girls approached them and tilted his head to face them as their boots crunched in the grass.

"Everyone here?" Erza asked with her hands on her hips and face blank.

"…Yes?" Lucy replied, looking from Gray, Gajeel, and Natsu to Erza then back again, wondering if somebody else had been racing with them that Lucy had missed. Would the others be considered accomplices for not stopping them, too?

"Aye," Natsu muttered, arms crossed.

"Gajeel, Lucy – the two of you are preparing the arts cabin for the kids to come in after breakfast. Here's a list of what you need to prepare and here's what you need to hide," Erza instructed, passing over two yellow pieces of paper. Lucy cheered silently, accepting one of the papers while Gajeel took the other, relieved that they would be inside and doing a relatively painless task. If anything, they would be done in a few minutes! How was this even a punishment? Lucy would have volunteered to do it without any coercion.

Erza continued. "You'll also have to clean up from yesterday. Mirajane fell ill before she could continue after the kids so I'm not sure what you'll be walking into there, her sessions are always entertaining."

Lucy - who had only seen the aftermath of one of Mirajane's art sessions - made a face, but wisely stayed silent. The fair-haired counselor was particularly sensitive to comments against what she considered good ideas, something Lucy only figured out yesterday when Makarov had elected Erza to delegate punishment on them. Lucy didn't know what he had said that set Mirajane off, but she had left in tears while Erza berated the camp leader.

"Gray, Natsu – here's some trash bags and gloves. Gildarts' group went a little crazy at their bonfire and made a mess of their area. You're to pick it all up then empty the trashes into the dumpsters over there. I expect the area to be spotless or else."

Natsu and Gray blanched. Nobody knew what happened in Gildarts' group; it was loud and rambunctious, but only a select few were invited over there, the rest delegated between the other campers. Rumors said it was because Gildarts was the only one who could handle them, but she knew the boy named Alzack was there and nothing Bisca or Natsu said about him seemed difficult enough to warrant Gildarts' attention.

Either way, Gildarts often had the best bonfires; one that regularly made such a mess that his group had to wake early to clean it up because doing so at night would only lead to be a bigger mess.

"That's cruel and unusual punishment," Lucy noted while Gajeel sniggered.

Erza ignored her thankfully. "Breakfast break in an hour. I'll check on you periodically so you better be working. The faster you do this, the faster you can get out of here. Everyone know what they are doing?"

"Aye," they chorused quietly.

"Onwards then!" Erza marched off to the docks, doing whatever else she did in her free time.

Gray and Natsu pulled on gloves and grabbed a trash bag, marching off in a flurry of muttered threats. Lucy giggled, hands clasped behind her back, grateful that she hadn't gotten that punishment, as she followed Gajeel. She didn't remember where the arts cabin was, but he seemed to know where they were going and led her between two cabins, obnoxious snores drifting out of the windows. It was only when they were in a deserted portion of camp that Lucy remembered she knew nothing about Gajeel.

"Uhm, so, is this your first time at camp?" Lucy asked, studying his face. His piercings made her think that he would be threatening – scratch that, everything about his face read dangerous and she shifted on her feet, fearful, till he gave a bark of laughter. It didn't settle her nerves, but he sent her an amused look after that made her feel slightly better.

"Nah, been here a few years, just not as long as those two." He jutted his chin towards Gray and Natsu - or where she assumed they would be. Then he pointed ahead to a plain cabin; the only difference between it and every other cabin was the colorful door, where a rainbow of handprints decorated the exterior. "Cabins up here, they keep it away from the bonfires. Safety reasons or some shit."

"Lots of things in there that could go up in flame easily," she mused.

"It's _wood_. This whole damn place is flammable. Nah, I just don't think they want to lose the door. Damn thing has been around here longer than anyone, think this is the oldest cabin here."

Lucy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"End of the summer, everybody paints their hand and slaps the door like this is some sort of good luck ritual. Some sentimental bullshit about the camp living in our hearts, Gramps likes that mentality a lot. Everyone here does."

Lucy bit her lip, eyeing the door with interest as they approached it, but she couldn't see more than a few handprints before Gajeel was pulling it open. "You don't believe in that?"

"Even if I did, this isn't a musical. Don't think we need a lecture about it every year."

"Ever think it's not just for you?" She asked sarcastically, vaguely recalling Makarov's speech a few days ago about the friendships that lived on in the camp. It was the sort of cliché speech someone would expect from a summer camp, really, so Lucy had tuned it out, too lost in thought to remember the entire thing.

Gajeel didn't get a chance to respond as both their mouths dropped open.

The cabin was a wreck; streams were tossed about the room as though someone had played catch and a flurry of papers were stacked precariously on the table, coated in the aftermath of a glitter bomb that spilled slowly and steadily to the floor. A pair of scissors were stabbed suspiciously into the table, impressive in its own right when Lucy couldn't even pull it out. Someone had left a tray of crayons in the window sill, leaving behind a pool of melted rainbow colored wax.

"…How do you even make this mess? What were they doing?" Lucy cried out, running a hand over her face only half an hour later, having finally finished separating the papers by color as required and swept up the glitter. …Well, enough that it wasn't obvious that someone had a glitter fight in the cabin. She didn't think the room would ever stop sparkling.

Gajeel shrugged, batting a stream that fell from the roof to land on his head. It clattered on the floor noisily and he stooped to pick it up, tying the stream off to keep it from unrolling and tossing it across the room. Lucy rolled her eyes, ignoring the mess he was only encouraging. It arched and with a thud landed in the small, thin basket that held the other streamers.

"That was a lot of precise aiming for something that could be done in a few seconds," Lucy noted when he did it a third time.

"There's a game after breakfast, I can't practice because of this," he said, rolling his eyes.

Lucy snorted and he glared at her. They had only known each other for a little while, but Lucy could see that he didn't often allow himself to just have fun. He seemed the type that broke down walls with a single kick or stole candy from children. He did little to discourage it with his glares, too, but Lucy could already tell that he was just acting like a grumpy old cat.

A grumpy old cat perfectly capable of tying Lucy into a knot, so she didn't point this out to him.

The front room was cleaned up a few minutes before the chatter of some campers reminded them of breakfast. Lucy stretched her arms above her head till there was a pleasant crack and then she dropped them. "C'mon, let's go! I hope they still have some peach oatmeal," Lucy said, rocking on her feet, waiting for the taller man.

"Tch, get there before Salamander then, he could probably eat a horse right now."

"He uses up a lot of energy being Natsu," Lucy defended him as they left the cabin, the door closing behind them with a snap.

Most of the camp was still asleep, only some getting ready for morning hikes and some abnormally early birds wandering around. Lucy picked from the first batch of food, eating her food slowly as she waited for Natsu and Gray to show up for their breakfast. Gajeel finished his within a few bites, standing up to get seconds before Lucy was even halfway done with hers; his appetite was second only to Natsu, which made her think it was a genetics thing.

Gajeel finished his seconds, starting his thirds as Lucy finished her first bowl of oatmeal, and still there was no sign of Natsu.

"Where'd they go?"

Gajeel shrugged, unconcerned, staring off into the distance.

Lucy sighed when he finished, knowing they couldn't delay any longer as their deadline approached. Maybe they had too much to do before breakfast to even consider taking a break. Yet, she knew it was unlikely for Natsu to skip breakfast either. Breakfast was his favorite meal of the day and he loved it – right up there with lunch and dinner. She played with her water bottle as they began their trek back to the arts cabin.

They only got a few steps before they were ambushed by an irritated Erza, dragging Gray and Natsu with her by the backs of their apparently sturdy shirts and dropping them to the ground. Both of their faces were bruised and cut; a knot was forming on Natsu's forehead as though he had impacted something hard.

"Natsu!" Lucy crouched over him, biting her lip at the various bruises on his face. "What happened?"

"Best friends fight, Lucy, it happens." Erza said, scratching her nose as Lucy kneeled beside her downed friend. There was an identical knot on Gray's forehead and she guessed that meant the 'something' Natsu had hit was Gray's head.

Lucy huffed, her worry dissipating. It wasn't unusual for Gray and Natsu to fly off the handle and start brawls that involved the whole camp, but she thought they would be smart enough to wait till after their punishment to start another. Nonetheless she brushed his pink hair away from his forehead with gentleness, pausing when she felt him shift, eyes blinking up blearily before they settled on her. He grinned, canines flashing, and Lucy rolled her eyes while tapping his forehead.

Erza didn't notice him wake up, arms crossed and still speaking. "I thought it would be best for them to work together since Gajeel and Natsu fight too much to be left alone and Natsu wouldn't consider time with you as a punishment. But I don't tolerate fighting and they need to be separated before I have to intervene again. When they wake, we're switching the groups."

"Umm…" Lucy said, frowning. Natsu wouldn't really work in the arts room, he would probably cause a mess while they were setting up things for the kids that would come in.

"Lucy, you'll trade with Gray. He'll help Gajeel and you'll help Natsu with picking up trash."

Her mouth dropped open. "What? No! Erza!"

"Sorry, Lucy," she said, sincerely. Gajeel watched without much interest. "But I don't have a choice. They should be almost done anyway."

"Why can't we just be done then?"

Erza blinked. "Lucy, we can't just not finish a job."

"But…" Lucy rubbed her forehead, nose wrinkling in disgust.

"It'll be fine, Lucy, it's not that bad," Natsu told her, announcing his wakefulness by sitting up, rubbing his jaw where a bruise was starting to form. She winced for him, pulling his hand away to press her water bottle against the bruise carefully. It wasn't cold, but it was cool enough that she thought it would soothe the ache.

"You're dumb," she told him, holding it in place.

"That's not nice or true."

Lucy shook her head. "Facts are generally not nice, but even you can't deny that fighting Gray right now is a stupid idea. Do you want to be left picking up trash for the rest of your time at camp? Erza might actually do that. Then what would I do?"

His nose wrinkled and Lucy knew that meant 'no'. The triumphant look on her face made him laugh. "You'd be fine without me." Natsu paused thoughtfully then said, voice low, "I could handle it, you know, you don't have to suffer with me."

She tapped his forehead, not pointing out that Erza – who always seemed to hear when mischief was happening – wouldn't have allowed it anyway. "It's fine, it's always more fun when we're together anyway. Just don't do it again, I'm only picking up trash for you once."

Natsu didn't speak for a long moment, enough that Lucy began to wonder if she had said something wrong. She was being truthful – she hated punishments and she hated picking up trash, but time with Natsu wasn't exactly a punishment to her. Erza had said it about Natsu, but she wondered if Erza knew that it applied to Lucy as well. After all, this was her best friend, the one who had helped her in the weeks following Layla's death, and picking up trash with him wasn't a hardship to do in return; it hardly compared, really, to what he did for her in those weeks or the ones that followed.

But friendship was new to her. As new as the camp. Was admitting such a thing abnormal to confess? Was her rejection of his offer – sweet as it was that he would take the brunt of trash picking for her – similar to slapping him? Lucy didn't know and she didn't know how to begin figuring it out either.

Lucy chewed her lip.

"Alright," said Natsu finally, standing up and holding his hand out for her. Lucy looked up at him, noticing that Erza and a waking Gray watched them with interest. His fingers wiggled, a boyish smile crossing his face. "Guess we can suffer together."

"It can't be all that bad," she replied, accepting his hand; his warm fingers clasped hers and he drew her to her feet with a single tug. Well prepared for his strength, Lucy didn't stumble, though her hand tightened a fraction around his.

At her words, he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. "Well…"

…

It was worse. Far worse. She didn't even know people could make such an immense mess in one night; it was as though Gildarts had thrown a nonstop party with a hundred people in attendance rather than the ten or so people in his group. Lucy didn't want to imagine how horrible it must have been before Gray and Natsu started; if this was how it looked _after_ those boys cleaning for an hour, she could only imagine how it looked _before_.

With her rising disgust, Lucy's determination dwindled.

"I still don't see how I got dragged into this punishment," Lucy grumbled, tossing trash into a bag with a wrinkled nose. "I wasn't even the one swimming." Mainly because she couldn't, but Natsu didn't need to know about that particular weakness.

Natsu grumbled, his scarf wrapped around his face to keep the offensive odor of the trash away from his sensitive nose. Though his words were muffled, Lucy could make out his bitter remarks and she scoffed, stepping around him when he jabbed a piece of paper with his stick.

"You're the one who started this," she pointed out unhappily, holding her breath as she tied off her garbage bag.

He scowled, hefting his bag and then hers into the dumpster. It was their second bag each and Lucy thought they were close to being done since the bonfire was starting to look like an actual place again. Only a little straightening up and they would be done.

They hurried away from the dumpster and once they were far enough away, she let out a breath, relieved to gasp in clean, fresh air. Natsu did a little jump to her amusement, garnering a dirty look and then a question. He repeated it twice, seeming amused by her inability to hear him through his scarf, before she understood.

"I don't know, she said we needed to be done before breakfast finished."

Natsu shrugged and lowered his scarf, ignoring her squawk of protest. His eyes lifted to the sky, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun when he spotted it through a pair of trees. "It should be done, we could probably go now," he said hopefully. "C'mon, Lucy, I'm hungry, let's go before everyone finishes off breakfast. We're practically done here anyway, Gildarts' can straighten it out when he gets here."

"Do you really want to risk Erza finding out we left early? No, we're going to finish this already so she doesn't have a reason to get mad at us again." Then, lower, she grumbled bitterly, "We already missed the hiking, Natsu Dragneel, we have nothing else to do." It had started fifteen minutes ago, the hiking group shooting them pitying looks as they passed. How was it that she had been at camp for six whole days and done nothing? Sure, she enjoyed the welcoming feast and the bonfires, but the rest of the days were spent swimming related activities - of which Lucy couldn't even participate in - or hikes beyond her skill level.

She couldn't even finish her mission, just one dead end after another. As much as Lucy loved the camp, she hadn't found anything that really reminded her of Layla. It was like… she was missing something, but she couldn't tell what. What about this place had attracted Layla enough that she remembered it years later? It was silly to think a hike would offer her any insight, but Lucy wouldn't know if she didn't try everything.

Now she couldn't even go hiking till tomorrow and that meant another night of awful sleep. She kicked at a rock, watching it skid across the floor and crack against a boulder around the bonfire.

"The hike for babies anyway," Natsu scoffed. "We need to go on a real hike and those start tomorrow."

She pouted. "I'm not a baby, I just don't go on hikes like you do. I'll work my way up to the harder stuff."

"You don't learn by starting out small like that! It's better to jump straight into it, learn as you go along with it. It's like jumping into the lake! You go one foot at a time, you'll become like Popsicle Princess."

Lucy stared, dumbfounded. Partially because she hadn't ever jumped in a lake so she didn't know the difference, but mainly because his theory sounded ridiculous. "What? That makes no sense!"

"It makes perfect sense, you're just missing it."

"I don't miss anything; my intelligence is vast."

"Doesn't matter how intelligent you are if your reflexes are slow," he said, raising his brow.

Lucy seethed. "What do you know?"

"Enough."

"Well, you don't! My reflexes are fine!"

"Prove it."

"Fine! Let's go join the game that Gajeel was talking about, I'll show you!"

With a sarcastic bow, Natsu gestured her forward. "Lead the way."

She stomped away, fuming. Sure, Lucy wasn't the most athletically inclined person; if her time wasn't spent on the lessons her parents required of her, she preferred to read and write, but Lucy had learned archery from Sagittarius when she was twelve, self-defense from her Uncle Capricorn when she was fifteen, and juggling from Virgo just last year to entertain her sick mother. Just an hour, once a week – enough that Lucy could _easily_ win at a stupid ball game and prove her reflexes were up to par.

She missed the victorious grin that crossed his face as he followed behind her.

…

Lucy approached the benches where Natsu sat, his face blank as he munched on an apple. His eyes only drifted to her when she dropped breathlessly down beside him. Her blood was still pumping, a roar in her ears. She smiled smugly at him. "And you doubted me?" she asked as the game began to wind down around them after her score-winning catch in the outfields knocked the other team out of the game.

They had been playing for close to two hours, maybe more, and Lucy's heart was still racing from the joy of it.

They had tried to take it easy on her since she was the only girl playing and Lucy had wiped the floor with them all without even batting once.

"Knew you were going to win. If Cana was around, I would have put jewel on it," Natsu said, tossing his apple core into a nearby trashcan. He wound an arm around her shoulder with a laugh. "You showed them, look at his face." He pointed at one of the boys with long brown hair and dog-like look on his face as he kicked the grass.

"I can't hear him," Lucy said, watching the boy's lips moving with the ferocity of his anger. _Too much over a silly ball game._

Natsu tilted his head and she stayed quiet. His senses were always a tad better than hers – more than a tad, really – and she didn't want to distract him from the idle gossip. His arm was still around her shoulder and she relaxed into him, finding the rush of her game fading with each passing second. "He's complaining about how his sock went missing in the wash last time he was at camp," Natsu explained, snorting.

"What? Why?"

"Don't know. That one is telling him to stop shouting about it though." The second boy was shorter than the rest of his group with large, bushy eyebrows.

"Who are they anyway?" She recognized them from the cafeteria. They were just another unknown in a sea of vague faces.

Natsu indicated a haughty, white-haired boy. "That one is Gray's brother, but I don't know the rest."

"I didn't know he had a brother."

"Would you want to admit that Gray was your brother?" He asked skeptically. She elbowed him, laughing. "They don't get along, no surprise there. Lyon is good at baseball though. If you lost to anyone, I thought it would be him."

"I didn't though." She demolished him when she caught his _almost_ game winning hit. _Had I missed, his team would have won._ His team might have lost, but they had played fiercely and it was only through slim luck that Lucy's had won.

"Those lessons paid off then."

"Lessons?"

"Well, you know how to juggle, don't you? You have to know how to catch to do that probably," he told her, shrugging. "I figured that would put you on par with the rest of these ones here, but you did better than even I thought. Even Gajeel is impressed."

Gajeel was one of the people on her team and there was absolutely nothing in his face that suggested he thought she had played well. She would trust that Natsu knew him enough to tell. Then a thought occurred and she flinched, looking over at him with wide eyes.

"Wait a minute… you… you remembered that I wrote that?" She only told him once, months ago, during a ten facts session that he had started on accident, about learning to juggle. Not in her most recent letter, not in any sort of memorable capacity – _months ago among a list of insignificant facts._

His gaze grew serious and slightly confused as though the answer to her question was fairly obvious. "I remember everything you write."

 _Natsu…_

She opened her mouth, unsure of what she would say, when a coughing fit overtook her. Breathless, as though she had swallowed wrong somehow, Lucy turned away from his worried face, afraid that hers had turned as pink as his hair. She took a wheezing breath, rubbing her chest, and asked without really thinking, "Then why did you challenge me?"

"You're like Erza – you'll do something out of spite as well. Including leave before either of us got sick from that garbage," he explained with a grin.

"I think someone could make some ethical complaints about that," she complained, taking a deep breath as her lungs recovered. Her grew redder and she ducked her head. _How pathetic,_ she thought. A boy expressed… _something_ in her and she nearly choked on pure air.

"Maybe. Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It worked out though and it made up for missing the hike, right?"

Lucy thought carefully. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I think you're right," she said, smiling brightly.

* * *

 **Thank you classUnicorn for the review! Thank you everyone else for any likes/favorites! Hopefully the email notifications are fixed so I can hear from some of you again!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Finding Firelight**

* * *

 **four:**

"If ya two are done flirting with each other, we should get back," Gajeel interjected, snorting when Natsu and Lucy jumped. Lucy was positive her face wouldn't return to a normal color anytime soon and she shot Gajeel a nasty look, climbing to her feet with more dignity than she someone accused of flirting with their _best friend_ was meant to have.

Natsu had no such problems, a grin stretching across his face till his stupid canines were flashing. He began a confident stride towards the mess hall. Gajeel hadn't told them where they should have been going, but nonetheless, he and Lucy fell in step beside Natsu.

Lucy combed a hand through her hair, trying to fix the kinks from having it in a pony-tail and nearly stumbled when Natsu spoke. "Metalhead wouldn't know what flirting was if it punched him in the face," Natsu commented with his hands folded behind his head. Gajeel gave him a look that could make a lesser person shiver, but Natsu merely raised a brow.

Lucy pointed out the obvious. "Does this mean you're flirting with him every time you hit him? I mean, the only person you hit more than him is Gray," she said. Both boys came to a stop and she almost kept walking, but halted at the last minute, rocking on her heels to see what they thought. Gajeel's face was akin to someone eating an entire lemon, but Natsu looked – dare she say it – thoughtful.

"No, he's practically my cousin, I can't flirt with him."

"Does this mean if he wasn't, you would?"

"Bunny girl," Gajeel growled.

Lucy waved him off, curious for Natsu's answer. Things of any romantic nature seemed to go over his head and Lucy was curious, almost painfully so, to have some insight into the way his brain worked. Not for herself, of course, just for science, but despite this protesting thought, she had a sudden image of herself with piercings, a messy mane of dark hair, and red eyes. She shivered, shaking the thought away. Even if Natsu was interested in someone with looks like Gajeel, that didn't matter to _her_.

"Not really, I'm not interested in him like that. Sorry, Gajeel, I hope you find someone who makes you happy."

Gajeel let out a relieved breath and Lucy suppressed a giggle with her hand.

"How about Gray?" Lucy asked, spotting a figure over their shoulders. The two did have a weird sort of chemistry and although she wasn't sure if fighting was exactly the healthiest way to show affection, she wouldn't fault either of them for using it to communicate. Far be it from her to judge her friends and their love lives.

"Lucy, that's horrible, why would you ask that?" Natsu moaned, clapping his hands over his ears. "I don't even want to be friends with the stripper, let alone… anything else."

"That's relieving to hear," said Gray dryly, freshly out of the showers from the looks of his clean clothes and the wet hair clinging to his brow. "I hate you too."

"Don't say that, you two are like best friends." Lucy laughed.

"Us?" Natsu and Gray chorused. When Lucy laughed again, they shot the other venomous looks and started walking once more, pointedly ignoring the other. She stifled the snort that nearly escaped when she noticed the identical little stomps the two boys were doing; Gajeel didn't comment at all, merely grunted and followed after them at a distance like he didn't want to be caught dead with two – three, he would say with a pointed glance at her - idiots.

"C'mon, Lucy!" Natsu called over his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

Lucy picked up the pace till she was shoulder to shoulder with Natsu. His head tilted to her, beaming, and though she wasn't sure what made him so cheerful, she returned it with one of her own.

…

The mess hall was teeming with people when the rather strange group arrived, but they made a wide berth around Lucy and the boys despite the lack of space. She bristled, but Natsu growled something at Gray and she figured the other campers had a point. Gray and Natsu together was cause for alarm, definitely, but adding Gajeel to the mix meant they were one step closer to an absolute catastrophe of which nobody wanted to see. She wondered what she added to the group – it was unlikely that any of them feared her, but as she collected her tray and the first grilled cheese she could find, Lucy noticed an abundance of looks on her.

She shifted uncomfortably, accidentally jostling Natsu's overfilled tray and only his swift tilting kept the whole tray from splattering the floor between them. "Careful, Lucy," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to subject you to the kitchens again," she replied, eyeing the food on his plate. The food station looked no worse for wear. They were familiar enough with some of the campers eating habits, but she didn't particularly want to see if they had enough accident forgiveness to load up another tray for Natsu in the event that his became Humpty-Dumpty.

Natsu ignored her comment. "Let's go find somewhere to eat."

"Lu-chan! Here!" Lucy squinted, trying to spot the voice in the crowd. Levy was short and though she could project her voice to be heard to everyone in the room, it wasn't much useful for actually locating her. Unless one of them happened to learn echolocation. Gajeel, who had been standing on the opposite side of a crowd leaving the mess hall, merely pointed her out and Lucy spotted Levy in one of the corners, only the tips of her fingers waving over the crowd's heads.

Gray waved off their invitation to join them, heading towards an orange-haired boy.

As they approached Levy's corner of the room, Lucy could make out Gajeel's voice: "You were better off standing on the table, you shrimp."

She bit her lip, wincing in sympathy at Gajeel's surprised yelp. She hadn't been on the receiving end of Levy's kicks, but she also wasn't so stupid as to comment on her friend's shortness aloud. Levy had told Lucy the first night of camp that she had heard comments about her shortness her entire life and her first instinct now was to kick first, ask later. As Gajeel was figuring out the hard way.

"Excuse me?"

Natsu sniggered, but Lucy elbowed him carefully. "Hi Levy!" Lucy said cheerfully, interrupting Gajeel's response.

"Where did you go? You weren't in the cabin I woke up."

"Neither was Erza though," Lucy pointed out.

"The only time Erza is still in the cabin in the morning is when we do the games," Levy said, waving her hand. "You, on the other hand, have to be hit in the head with Cana's mysterious bag of booze before you wake up."

"If you know what's in the bag, why is it mysterious?" Gajeel interrupted.

Levy shot him a look. "How she fit so much booze in one bag is beyond scientific explanation."

"How she hides it from Erza, too," Lucy admitted, cutting her grilled cheese to pieces with a plastic knife. Natsu rolled his eyes, taking the knife from her and setting it down on her napkin. He grabbed his grilled cheese as an example and held it up to her, ripping it into smaller pieces in less the time and effort. Lucy stole a piece of his and chewed on it, scowling at him. "Well, nobody asked you."

Natsu snatched one of her evenly cut slices, dipped it in his ranch dressing and ate it in one bite.

She narrowed her eyes, plucking a fry off his plate. He retaliated by swiping some of her chips.

"Swooping is bad," she told him evenly.

Natsu frowned. "What happened to sharing is caring?"

"Who told you that?"

"You."

"That's a lie, that doesn't sound like me at all," she said while taking another one of his fries, flicking him gently when he tried to grab a chip.

Levy leaned forward, elbows on the table as she watched. "Do they do this a lot?"

Gajeel shrugged. "Yeah."

"You're like a third wheel, huh?" she commented, grinning. The glee on her face made Lucy giggle; she covered the noise with a drink of water, but not soon enough. Levy's eyes landed on her with a thoughtfulness that made Lucy shiver, fearful of whatever her small friend would think to ask. "So, Lucy, where have you been all day? You didn't answer earlier."

Lucy thought this was a suspiciously easy question. "I had… detention… all day and then I went to play baseball."

Levy blinked. "Detention? Baseball?"

"Because I ran off with him—" She jutted her chin towards Natsu. "—so Erza considered me an accomplice. I woke up at dawn to clean up the arts and craft cabin place thing with these ones."

"Cabin place thing, very clear," Natsu noted with a laugh. "What happened to all the fancy words in your letters?"

"There's a difference between writing something and saying something," she said defensively. "I can look over my writing for errors or search a dictionary for the exact word I need, but I can't exactly do that when I'm talking."

"Thought it was instinctive," he said, shoving half of his burger into his mouth in one smooth move.

She eyed him with some disgust. "Only parts of it."

Levy snapped her fingers before Lucy could begin her tirade about writing. "Lu-chan, focus."

"Sorry."

"So, how'd you end up playing baseball and, more importantly, did you win?"

"Of course I won, who do you think I am? I'm a Heartfilia, we don't lose."

Natsu laughed, choking on his food. Gajeel tapped him – she used the word generously, because Natsu slammed forward into the table, narrowly avoiding landing face first into his ranch soaked plate – until the coughing subsided. Lucy glared at him, a vicious thought of letting him choke in retaliation for wounding her pride, but she let it go just as quickly when he shot Gajeel an offended look. With the fire in his eyes, the messy pink hair, and the bit ranch on his nose, Lucy thought he was cute.

 _She thought Natsu was cute._

She clapped a hand over her mouth, glancing around, but nobody had her mental slip. Sure, he might have been _a little_ cute, but to think it so… so blatantly was scandalous. It was the type of thing that would send the rest of the camp into an early grave – and death by cackling was not the type of thing people wanted to put on their tombstones any more than she wanted to put death by humiliation on hers.

Her weird thought and movement went unnoticed and Lucy dropped her hand with an inward sigh that quickly changed to a surprised gasp.

In her brief lapse into thoughts – read as: panic – the mess hall had fallen into an all-out food fight. Strangely, it wasn't the fact that Gray was suddenly by their table or that Gajeel and Natsu were in the middle of shoving an entire burger up the other's nose or the fact that fury-faced Erza was lamenting the loss of her strawberry cake that made Lucy pause, it was the fact that Levy in all her glory was standing on the table, throwing salad at anyone that got too close to her.

Lucy gapped at them, sliding out of her seat at the exact moment that Gray slammed into the table where she had been sitting, bits of ketchup smeared across the left side of his face and bits of lettuce clinging to his hair.

"What did you guys do?" she hissed, words turning a yelp part-way through when a glob of something came soaring towards her face. Gray snarled when it plopped against his ear, flinging himself back into the melee. Lucy scrambled under the table, face peeking between the bench and the table with a grimace. Natsu stumbled back into the table, his shirt drenched in the remnants of their drink and a look of almost gleeful happiness on his face and she narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to get us all in trouble? Master won't be happy if we make a big mess!"

"Lu-chan! Stop talking with the enemy!" Levy demanded, flipping her bowl of salad over Natsu's head.

"What? What enemy? What's happening? I was only thinking for thirty seconds!"

Levy's eyes flickered to hers, but only briefly as Natsu was shaking the lettuce off his hair like a dog. Lucy batted a piece away before it could get her in the eye and therefore could do nothing when Natsu grabbed a fist-full of _her_ chips and flung them into Gray's face. "Natsu!" Her hand shot out, fingers gripping the edges of his dangling scarf and jerking him down; he yelped, dropping to one of his knees. "I was going to eat those still!"

"I mean… you still could," he wheezed, tapping her fingers. She let his scarf go with an apologetic grimace. "But I wouldn't."

Lucy glared. "I wanted those chips."

Natsu stared at her for a long moment, his eyes flickering from her steely eyes to the pout of her lips, and she forced herself not to react, not flinching in the face of scrutiny. Another moment passed. Finally, he sighed in defeat. "Fine, I'll get you another bag, alright?"

"Hmm…"

"Don't get greedy," he joked. "I'm only getting you one bag."

 _Interesting_ , she thought. "Does that mean if I beg, you'll get me more?" She asked quizzically, folding her hands on the bench and poking her head out from beneath the bench. When a piece of food flew too close for comfort, she ducked back underneath with a flinch.

Natsu stepped forward, blocking her from view, a grin on his face as he crouched to be closer to her. "I could, but I didn't expect you to beg," he said, laughing. Movement behind him caught her attention and she blinked, preparing to shove him to the side, when he struck his arm out and flung the offender's food away before it could make contact with either of them.

"I didn't say I was going to, just questioning. Don't be weird," she said, relieved to avoid that mess.

"Says the one hiding under a dirty bench."

"Says the one who started a food fight. What are you, twelve?"

"Gajeel and Levy started it."

"Oh, sure, I can totally believe Levy did it. She's a sweetheart."

"Lucy… She's dumping soda on Gajeel's head right now," he said with an undertone of pride as they both peeked over at Levy and Gajeel. Levy hopped between tables with deadly grace, joined by two or three other people who followed her, and her current table put her just above Gajeel's distracted head. Lucy held back a snort when soda landed on the boy's head.

"Gajeel's a big boy, he can handle it," she replied cheerfully. "Besides, I think they are flirting."

Natsu squinted. "I don't see it."

Gajeel yelped and whirled around, murder in his eyes. "Shrimp!" He shouted at her retreating back, scrambling around tables to chase after her. The chaos of everyone flinging food at each other should have made it more difficult to see – after all, Lucy had already lost sight of Levy – but she heard a yelp in the distance that told her Gajeel had caught up.

"Okay, you might be right," Natsu noted, seeing something that Lucy couldn't see. She tugged on his pants and he explained, "He's carrying upside down on his shoulder. It's not a Gajeel move, I expected him to put gum in her hair."

"What is he, five?"

Natsu shrugged.

"BRATS!"

Lucy giggled when the room came to a sudden, horrified stop. For once, she wouldn't be the one to get in trouble for this; they couldn't even label her an accomplice when she was clearly hiding, not a trace of evidence in her hands. Natsu fell back onto the bench, trying to roll underneath the table to hide with her and she giggled again, poking his back and shoving him to the floor. "No, you face the consequences," she told him mock sternly.

"Lucy," he muttered quietly, panicked eyes flickering between Makarov and her. "I thought you said it was more fun when we're together?"

"Oops, too late," she said cheerfully just as Makarov approached them, his face impatient and red, though Lucy couldn't help noticing the little twitch of his lips whenever he caught sight of some of them. She figured it was a little hard to be mad when someone had two buns stuck to their face like Gray's brother did.

"I came to assure everyone that their mail arrived safely and could be picked up before dark," Makarov started, his hands folded behind his back. Lucy's eyes widened. The crowd perked up, dropping their food onto the table or – in most cases – the floor, though Lucy only noticed dimly, her eyes locked on Makarov, waiting with bated breath for him to finish. "But the front cabin will be closed by the time you all finish picking up. I imagine you'll have to wait till breakfast tomorrow to pick up your mail. Oh, what a series of unfortunate events, but I suppose that's the price we pay to have fun."

She let out a breath and Natsu helped her out from underneath the table, squeezing her hand briefly before he joined everyone else in the cleaning. It was a slow process, even with everyone's excitement and Makarov's watchful eyes, and it was only when Erza, nearly as red as her hair, stated her apologies loudly that productivity increased by ten percent. Lucy, Bisca, and Droy were the only ones to avoid clean up, but after a few minutes of watching the pitiful – yet amusing, if Bisca's snorts meant anything – of watching their fellow campers, the other two pitched in with the effort.

Stubbornly, Lucy cleaned off a spot on the table and climbed up, feet resting on the bench and absently watched Natsu scrub ketchup off the walls. Feeling eyes on him, he glanced over at her and offered a cheery wave. Lucy returned it mechanically, an unpleasant bubble forming in her stomach that seemed very unlike everyone else's excitement. Mail came once a week, often in a bundle since outsiders were limited to one day a week of access to the camp to protect the campers, and it was strange to realize she had been at camp for a whole week. It felt like yesterday she had just arrived, worried and uncertain, but determined.

 _A whole week._ She couldn't believe that in that time she had forgotten, mostly, about her home.

She wondered if her father noticed her absence yet. When it came time for camp, Lucy hadn't even said good-bye to him, merely let Virgo escort her to the meet-up in town where a bus would take her to _another_ meet-up that would take her to camp. Was a week long enough for him to notice and miss her absence? It was the longest time either of them had been separated in a way and she hoped, perhaps futilely, that the space was exactly the thing he needed to remember that he had a daughter who needed him.

Lucy really missed her dad and she hadn't even realized how much till now. Lucy sighed, foot bouncing on the bench as she waited for Makarov to dismiss them for the night. Her father was a smart man, she bet that he realized she wasn't there after the first dinner. She would bet anything that by the next night, he was curious about her and how she was doing, how the silence of their dining room would be worse than usual and he would want to write to her, just to make sure she was safe at the camp or having fun. If she was lucky, that is.

 _It's called Love and Lucky, that has to count for something_ , she thought with a hopeful smile, jumping off her bench as Makarov sent everyone out to the beckoning bonfires.

…

Lucy slept badly despite her cheerful thoughts, dreaming of the letter her father left her that apologized for the last year, dreaming that for every day she was gone she had a letter in his sharp, pointed handwriting. Each dream made her smile, but they always ended after a moment as squeaking noises roused her from sleep. She never got any farther than recognizing her father's handwriting before she awoke, heart racing and ears pricked for the rustling nearby, and as the hours crept by, one after another in a slow-moving dance, Lucy thought she would never fall asleep at all.

As quickly as the thought came, it passed and Lucy was sound asleep.

The next time she woke, the sun was well on its way, beaming at her through the window and she mumbled sleepily, rolling to face the other way and snuggling into the warmth of her blankets. Her body felt heavy still, craving sleep for a few hours longer after such a rough, up-and-down night, and she nearly gave into its demand.

Levy chattered happily about getting a letter from her mother. Cana laughed, talking about a letter from her friend, Kagura, and the letter her dad would sneak into the mail as well even though he was asleep in one of the other cabins. Their happiness was infectious and Lucy snapped awake, sitting up so quickly that Levy startled in her own bed, squawking as the book she held clattered to the ground.

"It's mail day?" Lucy asked sharply, tiredness fading from her face at the first nod. She threw herself out of bed, legs tangling in the blankets and she ripped them off in her frenzy. Her dreams had lit a fire beneath her, one that drowned out the last year of heartache, leaving behind a frantic sort of excitement. The letter was going to be there, the one that was going to fix everything. Well, maybe not everything, but it was going to be a start that she would grasp eagerly with both hands.

Levy and Cana watched her with astonished faces, but she had no time to explain or words to give as she shrugged off her pajamas, letting them flutter to the floor forgotten as she tugged on the nearest pair of clothes she could find. The shorts were snug on her hips, but she ignored them, brushing her teeth and then her hair, darting out the door with her hands still gathering blonde tresses into a messy ponytail. It was a rush job, but her looks were the last thing on her mind.

The door burst open behind her as Levy and Cana scrambled after her. "I didn't expect to see you so excited," Cana noted, her eyes narrowed.

"This is the longest I've been away from my father ever!" That wasn't precisely true, her father went on many trips that lasted weeks. Once he had left for two months and his arrival back had only been because her mother had fallen so ill that she couldn't rise from bed. She amended her statement, forcing away that awful memory, "This is the longest _he's_ been away from _me_ , I mean he usually has someone with me when he's on business trips so he can just ask them how I'm doing. But this time he can't! Master and Gildarts are the only ones with working phones up here! I want to know everything that's happening back home and he'll have to tell me if he wants to see how I am!"

Levy frowned, but Cana slung her arm around Lucy's shoulders, drawing her to the other girl's bosom. Lucy blushed. Cana laughed and said, "Well then, onwards! We'll get you breakfast while you get the mail – what do you want? I'm thinking waffles."

"Oatmeal. Maple and brown sugar," Lucy replied, thinking of her father's favorite breakfast with a grin. She let out a relieved giggle when Cana let her go. With a salute and a nod, Cana and Levy headed for the mess hall, gesturing animatedly about the camp's event later today.

Lucy smiled and raced for the main cabin – it was attached to the mess hall like a shed, but it's entrance was on the opposite side of the mess hall's. As she entered, she could see a few other campers collecting their mail from a cheery faced Mira and Lucy waited in line, so excited that it took everything in her to do nothing more than tap her fingers against her side. When it was her turn, she nearly leapt to the counter, but controlled herself enough to approach it like a normal human being.

From the amusement on Mira's face, she didn't necessarily succeed.

"Hey Mira, can I get the mail for Cana, Levy, and I?"

Mira smiled, flipping through a stack of neatly organized letters, plucking one that she could see was for Cana from a section labeled A. Her finger ran down the alphabet, but when she came to H, Mira paused, her smile dropping. Lucy felt the world tilt. "I don't have any mail for you, Lucy," she said apologetically, eyes darting up and then widening as she spotted Lucy's disheartened face. "Let me go check the back, it might have been— "

"No, it's okay," Lucy interrupted, a lump rising in her throat at her own foolish hope. "Can I have Levy and Cana's? I told them I'd bring it to them."

Mira hesitated, a war playing across her face, before she went back to her stack of letters to pluck out Levy's. She passed both of them over with a grimace. "I'm sorry, maybe next week though," she whispered, aware of the sudden silence in the room. As though everyone knew that the Heartfilia girl wasn't worthy of getting a letter from home. Lucy sucked in a shallow breath, offered a small broken smile, and then left the main cabin, walking slowly towards the mess hall.

For once, it was quiet, just the shuffling of paper and a low murmur of voices.

She ignored this, walking to where Levy and Cana sat, sinking into the open seat beside Levy. Both looked up at her, faces growing alarmed, and she forced a smile to her face, pleased when they calmed a fraction. She had no wish to talk, not here and not to anyone.

Shakily, she offered over her friend's letters. Cana pushed over the bowl of oatmeal in thanks, only pausing when she noticed the lack of anything else in Lucy's hands. "Hey, Lucy," she started slowly, sharing a look with Levy that spoke volumes. "Did you, uh, get anything from home?"

Lucy smile fractured slowly, piece by piece, and then she lowered her voice. "Of course, I just want to read it in the cabin," she said, forcing cheer into her voice. Then, because she didn't want to be alone, but she also didn't want to talk about herself, she asked, "Who is yours from?"

Cana stared at her a moment longer, glancing at Levy once more, then said, "My friend, Kagura. She's too old for the camp now, missed the cut-off by three months." Love and Lucky was, unfortunately, for younger children and teens from twelve to eighteen, which was possibly why Lucy found it so bizarre that her parents had fallen in love here after a single summer. Less than year, when you thought about it, and yet they knew after camp ended the first time that they were meant to be together.

Levy and Cana began to read their letters while Lucy wondered, scooping a bite of oatmeal into her mouth, what it was like to be loved so swiftly and unconditionally. For her father's faults, Lucy didn't doubt that he loved her mother from the beginning till the end and she knew – _she knew_ – that he loved her to this day.

Maybe that was why he didn't look at Lucy anymore. Maybe the pain was too much, maybe he couldn't stand to look at her any more than Lucy could stand to see her photos of her mother. How would it feel to see the face of someone who loved you looking back at you every day?

But then Lucy knew because she saw that same face every day and she didn't have the luxury of looking away from her own reflection.

She swallowed the oatmeal, setting her spoon down slowly because her stomach rolled and protested against the sudden rising desperation, so different than the excitement that had awoken her.

An entire week of not hearing from her and he didn't care at all to see if she was okay, to see if she needed him.

Not that she did. No, Lucy was practically an adult, she didn't _need_ her father, but there was a part of her aching with her parents' absence, the piece growing larger every day, and Lucy realized she didn't need her father maybe, but she certainly wanted him. She tried to recall the last time she had hugged him, a distant memory springing to mind of a red-haired doctor ushering her into her father's arms after Layla had died. Jude had hugged her tight and she had pressed her face into his white shirt, tears streaking down both their faces at the unexpected tragedy of the day.

That was the last time, really, because she couldn't recall her father during the funeral, just Virgo's grip on her shoulder, the maid unsure of how to comfort her, but offering her presence nonetheless. Lucy had felt like she had lost both her parents within days of each other and the empty, hard shell left behind was not the father who had given her a new bow every time he came back from a business trip away from home. Now the man who came back seemed to look at her impassively, eyes sliding past her as though she were little more than an average wall decoration.

Lucy bit her lip hard, forcing back the lump in her throat and prodded at her oatmeal. Maple and brown sugar sounded less appetizing now than it had a few minutes ago and she only managed to choke down two bites before the rustling paper and silence drove her mad. She stood up from her table, some eyes following her movement then drifting down to their letters or to their private conversations, and she dumped her oatmeal in the trash and her bowl into the sink, heart aching too fiercely to even speak when someone called her name.

Her body moved on automatic and she took calm, even steps toward the exit.

The moment the door shut behind her, she walked faster.

The moment she was out of view from anyone eating inside, she ran.

The moment her trembling legs gave out and sent her crumbling to her bottom in a familiar cove, she lent her face into her hands and cried.

* * *

 **Thank you sarara1.8, ThatOneFriend-3, and nikkiw67 for the reviews! Apologies for taking a few days longer to update, some life issues came up that had to be dealt with a little. Please let me know what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Finding Firelight**

* * *

 **five**

A bug crept up her arm, tickling her skin.

She swatted at it with a sleepy mumble and turned her head deeper into the pillow, but her fingers met warm sand instead and her brow furrowed. Slowly, she opened her eyes, blinking against the sunlight. She was curled up in a ball, face covered with sand and her back exposed to the sun.

What the hell? What was she doing outside?

Oh.

 _Oh._

Lucy squealed, flailing her arm long enough for the sensation of the bug to disappear before collapsing back onto the sand, a puff of air escaping her dry lips. Her hair tangled across her face where the golden strands escaped the messy remains of her ponytail and she wrinkled her nose every time the cool breeze played with it. Her body felt tingly: the beginnings of a sun burn building on her previously exposed back, a pounding headache behind her sore eyes, and a lingering ache in her heart.

She didn't know how much time had passed, but she had hoped that the pain would've been gone by now. Crying and napping had always been her cure to this feeling, but… it did nothing this time. She just felt tired and cranky, but worst of all, she felt uncomfortable. The sand was in places it had no business being, really, and she flushed a little as she wiggled her bra, trying to remove it to no avail. With a huff, she gave up and dropped her hand. Removing the sand from her clothes was as fruitless of an effort as stopping the traitorous tears from welling up again.

A year should have been long enough to push away her sadness, to bring acceptance, but she had only succeeded in letting it fester like an open wound.

But no more.

No more crying, no more tears. Lucy had to accept the truth: whoever her father used to be faded a long time ago. No amount of thinking, hoping, praying, _whatever_ , would change that.

It was easier to think about shutting off the part of her that still believed than it was to actually do it though. Bitterly, she swiped her hair behind her ears and scrubbed her face with her palms.

 _Stupid, Lucy, stupid._

"Hey."

Lucy stiffened at the familiar voice, moving her hands to hide her face rather than clean it. She really hoped he hadn't seen the hand in her shirt, but more than that, she hoped he didn't notice the redness to her face, clear evidence of her own weakness.

The sand crunched beneath his feet as he took steady steps towards her. He avoided kicking dirt into her face and that was proof enough that he had seen – or heard – her. Any other time, he would have laughed or tackled her into the water as his usual greeting, but this slow progression towards her felt was a walk someone would make towards a friend's sick bed.

She shifted her face away from him, pressing her fingers into her eyes as though it would pluck away her own thoughts in the process. Warm, painful tears coated her fingers instead and she pressed harder, trying to force them back. _Show no weakness, Lucy_ , her father had said _. Conceal and don't feel_. let out a shallow breath, the lump in her throat making it hard to breathe deeply.

She felt him settle on the ground beside her and she tensed, waiting for his touch, unsure of whether the part of her that craved it was stronger than the part that didn't. A long moment passed, her sniffles and the gentle swell of the lake's current brushing against the shore providing a lullaby. He did nothing, just sat there. She peeked at him, her face splotchy and red, a distant part of her embarrassed, but the rest sluggishly becoming numb to all else as the seconds passed.

His gaze was on the lake, the sun glittering off the water. Natsu, proving capable of reading the lines of tension in her body, kept his hands to himself, clenched around the lapels of a green backpack that rested in his lap.

"You look sunburnt," he said suddenly, tilting his head over at her. Stubbornly, she jerked her gaze away, but not without noticing the determined narrowing of his eyes. She imagined that was similar to the look when someone challenged him and he planned on winning, but - she peeked at him, his eyes were on her still, scrutinizing the sunburn on her left cheek – softer, somehow. Strange. She blinked slowly when he spoke again. "You didn't bring anything, right?"

From the depths of his backpack, he produced a full water bottle. "Here, I brought you one," he held it out to her expectantly. When she did nothing except stare at him, he sighed, rattling it. "C'mon, Luce, I'm not going to drag you back to camp if you drink this. We can stay out here all day if you want, but at least drink _something_. Gonna be no fun for the rest of the camp if you get carted off for dehydration, and you've already been out here a few hours."

Hours, huh? At least that answered the question of how long she had been sleeping. Lucy shifted, sitting up and a cascade of sand fell from her clothes and hair, reminding her of how badly her skin itched. _And how much sweat clung to her face._

Reluctantly, she accepted the bottle. The blaring heat was stronger than it had been when she arrived and when she uncapped the bottle, she inhaled most of it with her first drink while he watched on critically.

When she finished, she secured the lid and passed it over. His leash on silence broke and he promptly burst into laughter. "Wow, you're a mess right now," he cackled, pointing at her hair. She scowled at him, a blush on her cheeks as she took her hair down, pulling her fingers through the sand-caked strands. He stopped her, fingers pressing gently into her wrist to halt the movement. "Here, wait, you're not helping it much, you're not going to do much till you can rinse it out."

She dropped her hands with an annoyed sigh and he scooted closer, rising up on his knees behind her, his knees bumping into her back. "Hair tie?" He asked, holding out his hand and snapping it onto his wrist when she handed it over. Carefully, he gathered her hair, the pads of his fingers brushing against her cheeks to draw the hair off her face and then pulled it back from her face, wrapping the hair tie around the messy ponytail with skilled fingers.

He finished with one last wrap of the hair tie and settled back on his heels for a response. She adjusted it to be tighter and then smiled tentatively. His satisfied grin almost made her laugh, but she couldn't find enough amusement. "Wendy has long hair like you. Longer, actually. Whenever we go to the beach, she forgets to do her hair till she's already dunked in the water."

She nodded slowly, recalling a girl named Wendy who was as close to him as a little sister without actually being related to him.

"I could have done that myself," she grumbled, trying not to look at him.

"I know, but friends help friends, right?"

She shrugged, unable to think of an argument and unsure why she needed one anyway. With a sigh, she dropped her chin to her chest, the breeze on the nap of her neck pleasing. She hadn't realized how sweltering the sun was till the heaviness of her hair had been swept away. But even though her hair was less of a hot mess, it didn't change the fact that her face certainly was. She had no desire for him to see the evidence of her breakdown.

Her heart tugged in her chest and she lifted her chin, grimacing. Her fingers rubbed the spot in gentle circles as though it would ease the ache. It didn't, not in the slightest. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she dropped her chin on them, watching the water without another word.

He sat down beside her again, crossing his legs beneath him as he followed her gaze. There was little on the water to keep her attention, just small ripples and swaying foliage, and she imagined it was worse for him. Natsu was relentless; he climbed up metaphorical and sometimes literal mountains without pause and she wondered how he could stand to sit here with her while doing nothing more than feeling the bits of wind and the blaring sun.

"Why are you here?" Lucy asked, her words a harsh croak. She cleared her throat and continued more gently, "I mean, you don't have to be, but you are."

"Don't you know, Lucy? It's you." She didn't understand and it showed when he blew out a slow breath. Often people accepted his words at face value, not needing or caring to find the reasons, and she waited patiently, too tired to decipher and supply her own reasons for his words. "You're my friend. To me, that means being someone's eyes or someone's ears when they need it. Or just sitting here. Whatever you wanna do."

She studied him, trying to find a hint of his feelings in his eyes. A patient sincerity shone through them and she let out a little breath, feeling stupid for her doubt.

She leaned her face down, plucking strands of grass from the ground and tying them into knots. It eased her a little, relaxing the turbulent feelings in her enough that she could hold them down and think.

Maybe saying it would make them feel a little less heavy – and if she couldn't say it to Natsu, then who? She might have only known him in person for seven days, but Lucy had spent an entire year talking to him through letters. If anything, this should be easier, but instead she felt rather exposed as she spoke to the ground.

"When I was younger, I really thought my parents were perfect and I never really considered that they weren't until recently," she started slowly, dropping the grass when it grew too knotted and plucking another. "My dad worked a lot even then, but he made time for me whenever he could and my mom filled the gaps when he couldn't be there. His occasional absence and my mom's sickness were kind of just facts to me.

"Then my mom—well, we knew it was coming sooner or later. She had been getting sicker and sicker as the months went by and I'm honestly surprised - and happy, too - that we had her as long as we did. It was the same illness every time I think, and each time she would get sick a little while longer than before. But then she would recover, even if it was only for a little while and less so each time. It was scary- to wake up and find her gone one day. After she died, my father just... He wasn't himself." Understatement, she thought, chewing on her lip. "I thought it was grief, actually. I read up on anything and everything after she was gone. I just wanted to know what to expect from it. Easier to think about someone else than to think about yourself, you know?"

She tossed a look at him, half-hoping he wouldn't be paying attention, but oddly relieved to find his attentive gaze on her. Listening, caring. Natsu did those things sometimes, how dumb of her to forget.

"He... distanced himself a lot. It hurt, but he needed to recover - _I_ needed to recover. I thought maybe the distance would be best. We had dinner once a week after her funeral, but after a while, he just wasn't home to do it anymore. I saw him in passing, here and there, and it was like seeing somebody else entirely in my father's body. Somebody who didn't feel or think or remember anything except work. Sometimes I wonder if he got lost on a plane and they replaced him with a robot that looked the same. How else would he be so different?

"I tried pushing then. I mean, what else could I do? I didn't want to lose him, too, but it just... wasn't working! Everything I did, he just... didn't notice! Didn't care!" Her voice rose, breaking towards the end and she saw him twitch from the corner of her eyes. "And when I finally got him to look at me, it was like I was... It was like he was seeing a ghost." Her words dropped to a whisper, her throat tightening.

People had commented on much she looked like Layla her entire childhood, but after her mother was gone, the words had become tinged with sadness. They had a walking mirror of her mother walking around all the time and their pitiful gazes on her and her father had been enough to make Lucy sick.

He didn't interrupt her, but she wished he would. The crushing weight on her chest returned with an unexpected vengeance. Lucy tried to swallow her tears back – she shouldn't have any left - and failed when she felt the first drop trickle down her cheek.

"I really thought that I would come here and something would change. But so far nothing has. It's just the same situation, but with some distance to pretend it's normal." A shuddering breath left her, shoulders trembling from the force and she tried to wipe her face, annoyed with the snot and tears escaping her. A painful truth occurred to her, one that she had known subconsciously, but denied because it was easier to _be_ angry and upset than accept _why_.

"I want…" Her words were little more than a whisper once more, but they cracked too much for her to finish. She shuddered, trying to choke the words passed the lump in her throat. "I really want my mom and dad back."

With nothing left to say, Lucy held her head, giving up on holding back her cries. She felt the sand shift around her when he moved, but she didn't look up or stop, her eyes aching and her head pounding, throat too tight to speak any longer. He pulled her close, settling her between his legs and letting her head rest against his chest. His hand ran up and down her back in large, comforting sweeps, perhaps knowing there was nothing he could say that would help.

She leaned into him, accepting the comfort and cried more.

When the tears they finally stopped, a small weight seemed to have been lifted off her chest. The ache wasn't gone, nor were the wounds healed, but they were covered and safe till she could confront the source. She cringed at the idea, but through the headache, another epiphany was occurring to her. Subtly didn't work, hoping and praying didn't work either. Maybe it was time Lucy just… confronted him. If nothing changed then at least… at least Lucy would know. She sniffled, trying to clear her nose, and lifted her head. Her fingers were clenched tight around the collar of his shirt though she wasn't so sure when she had grabbed it.

"Sorry," she murmured, releasing him and cringing at the sweat that clung to the side of her face, mingling with her tears. It was too hot to be cuddling with someone for comfort like that, even if his presence had made her feel less alone. She pulled away from him a little and his hand fell to the sand beside them wordlessly as she examined her feelings.

She felt… better.

Well, maybe not better, but enough that she didn't feel as though her eyes would start leaking the next time someone mentioned her family.

Natsu said nothing still and she peeked up at him from beneath her lashes.

His pink hair was ruffled from the wind and there was a sun-kissed tinge to his cheeks, a reminder that both were setting in direct sunlight with little to no protection from the elements. As she moved away from him, he lifted one of his knees up, resting an elbow on one and watched her with a strange glint to his eyes. The strength of it made her uncomfortable; it was too knowing, too sincere, and she didn't expect that Natsu was capable of the depth they contained.

She swallowed, looking down again, unable to handle the full weight of those eyes.

Another moment passed and she thought, perhaps stupidly given her previous thoughts, that he hadn't heard anything she said, that it had just been a way of letting her vent, the words going in one ear and out the other. Truthfully, she wasn't bothered if that was the truth, because now that the words were no longer building in her chest like a dam about to explode. She felt silly for her reaction. Of all her problems, her father's absence was the biggest – but what of the people who had no parents at all, who had no money at all?

Her worries seemed trivial in light of their suffering.

He held out his hand to her, the sudden movement after such a long silence making her jolt. "C'mon, it's hot. Let's go sit in the water."

"I didn't bring in any extra clothes," she replied, baffled by the changing topic. Natsu grinned down at her, grasping her hand between his own and pulling her to the water despite her protests, only pausing to kick off their shoes with his backpack a safe distance away. The sand was soft and warm beneath her bare feet as they made their walk towards the water, little pebbles and twigs jamming her heels. Her toes scrunched when they came in contact with the water, so much colder than the air around them, but they quickly adjusted as she sighed blissfully, relieved for a respite from the heat.

Once they were in to their calves, he dropped down into the water with a splash, uncaring of the state of shorts as he did so and she hesitated only a moment before his carefree smiled landed on her, washing away her worries. He tugged once on her hand and Lucy sighed. She flopped down beside him, a half-hearted grin on her face when the water splashed against him, slopping against his shirt. Her own shorts clung to her, the cold as it settled against the hem of her shirt bringing goosebumps to her skin, but she ignored it, sitting cross-legged beside him.

He still held her hand, thumb tracing circles in her palm, each brush making her heart flutter just a little, unnoticed by them both. He let out a breath, thumb stilling as he watched her from the corner of his eyes. "Did I ever tell you about Igneel?"

She bit her lip. "Your dad? What about him?"

"Yeah, him. When I was younger, he just left one day without a word. I was probably seven, I don't remember. He dropped me off at Wendy's house before work like usual, but when time came for him to pick me up like normal, he wasn't there.

"Grandine – I mean, Wendy's mom – let me stay with her, we all thought it would only be the night and he would let us know in the morning. Sometimes work kept him busy enough that I didn't see him for a few days at a time, you know?" He paused, frowning. If anyone understood how much time a parent could put into work, it was Lucy and she figured that was just the few of many fundamental things they had in common. "But morning time came and still nothing. After a few days, even Grandine was worried, she sent me off to school one morning worried and when I came back, most of my things had been moved to her house. I didn't know what to think, I was too young, I thought he was getting rid of me."

His voice lowered, a quiet hurt there that made her heart squeeze and she twisted their hands around so that it was her stroking his palm, trying to offer a measure of comfort. He smiled back at her in thanks before he continued.

"I reckon she must have heard something about him. Kept telling me that he would be back someday, that he loved me. All that stuff that a kid wants to hear from his dad, not somebody that wasn't him. I stayed with them for years." Natsu laughed; it was a joyful kind, the one that brought a smile to anyone else's faces if they heard it. "Well, most of the time. I might have run away a few times, thought I could find him all my own. But someone would just drag me back to her house again and she would give me this look, like she could freeze hell with a single glance. Probably could, too! Heh, it was frightening for the first week or so, but then I'd be off again."

"Wow, it's like nothing has changed," she teased, snorting.

Natsu shook his head, a fake pout on his face. "I'm offended that you think that, I would hardly be caught now! Also, you can't interrupt the story!"

"Sorry, sorry. Continue," she urged, zipping her lips in compliance. If he could be silent for her story, Lucy could certainly do the same for him, if that's what he needed from her. She could be his ears as he was hers.

"I only stopped trying two years later, when Grandine sent me off to this camp. It wasn't as easy to run away, although I snuck into the back of one of the trucks and was halfway to Bosco before they found out I had left – actually, I think that's why they only let people into camp once a week now, huh, I didn't think about that, whoops. Anyway, they sent me back. They set Erza on me when I tried the second time. I guess, after that, I just stopped trying to make a break for it. I liked it here, it was fun, reminded me a bit of the time when Igneel was there."

She hesitated to interrupt him again, but the temptation to know proved too much. "Did… did Igneel come back?" Though his story was interjected with the wisdom and humor he had discovered over the years, Lucy could see the glint in his eyes. The one that didn't fade when he laughed, the one that came from questions to which there were no answer. She hoped he knew something, anything, rather than live forever with an open wound.

Therefore, she was surprised when a grin spread across his face. "Yeah, he did actually. A few weeks after I met you, he just came in the door one day and scared the shit out of Wendy. She was too young when he left, she didn't know much about him except a few pictures and he wasn't aging very well. So I punched him and – "

"You… punched him," she repeated, startled.

"Well, yeah, he just left for years without saying anything, I wasn't gonna let that go unsettled," he explained with a bizarre, offended look on his face as though his reasons were both valid and understandable. She didn't correct him, merely nodded and lifted her hands in surrender. "I think I punched him again and then he hugged me. Told me that he had some stuff to handle that wasn't good for a kid to see. Not sure how he avoided getting me taken away, you'd think they keep track of stuff like that at whatever adoption agency he got me at, but apparently, they didn't bother with it. I guess they would have if he had taken me along though and then we would have never seen each other again so it worked out for the best, I think."

"And you're okay?"

"Well, no, but you can't change the past," he said, shaking his head. "I could be mad that he didn't take me, hate him and leave him as soon as I became old enough, which wouldn't have been long since I turn eighteen next month. Or I could be happy that he's here. Not everybody gets a second chance with family and I'm one of the lucky ones who do."

Lucy tilted her head, examining his face for a sign that he was hiding something from himself. But nothing was there, just sincerity and happiness.

"That was probably the deepest thing you've ever said," she told him seriously, narrowing her eyes.

His face twisted, eyes dropping down to where she held his hand. Their fingers were locked around the others. "Don't be weird, I have feelings too, just because I don't talk about them as much doesn't mean they aren't there," he scoffed, looking away with a dusting of pink across his cheeks. "I just think it's a lot of work to talk about them and then someone is gonna mess up and say the wrong thing. I don't wanna be punched because I used the wrong word for what I'm trying to say."

Her stomach twisted. Natsu listened to her complain about her history without comment or discomfort, wordlessly comforting her because he knew it was what she needed, but Lucy was starting to realize that she knew very little about Natsu and his own story. Their letters had never crossed that path; they were friends reaching across a vast distance, afraid to say too much in case it was the final word.

"You're right," she admitted, chewing on her lip nervously. "I mean about having feelings because of course you do. I guess I forgot sometimes - because you're so unflinching, because you're so... Natsu - that you have them as much as the rest of us and you just handle them differently."

An uncomfortable silence came over them. Then- "Don't have issues explaining feelings with your big fancy words, huh?" He joked, leaning back on his free hand. She let out a breath, relieved to be stepping over her awkward stumble.

"My vocabulary is very limited when it comes to putting feelings into words, maybe if I was describing someone else's thoughts and feelings it would be easier, but even then, I struggle with putting emotions into stories," she said with a pout. "I guess big fancy words aren't useful with emotions either. A million and more possible ways of saying something and I haven't got a clue."

He side-eyed her, puzzled. "Think that's part of the million then."

Lucy shook her head. "If I want to be a writer, I need to do more than that though. How can I expect people to cry at my writing if I can't convey how the main character is wallowing in existential angst without blatantly saying it?"

"Well, I'm not sure what existential angst is, but you'll get the hang of it?" He asked, tilting his head. "What's your story even about? I thought it was about a girl realizing she had magic?"

"Existential angst is, like, someone realizing the crushing weight of responsibility and human freedom and their repercussions of one's own actions. In this case, one of my side characters - a king - has just realized that his persecution of wizards over the last ten years has lead to the horrible destruction of thousands of people and that it has spread around the world. So when he tries to change things, he finds that he's done too much damage and it will take years to recover. Where I left off, the king is realizing the error of his actions while the main character is questioning whether anybody can make it right if even the king can't."

Lucy stopped to catch her breath, blushing when she realized that she had been waving their joined hands around in her exuberance. She cleared her throat, face red as she studiously ignored the dumbfounded look on his face and finished with a lame, "Umm, anyway, that's what existential angst is. Kind of."

Her words had barely finished before he burst. "The hell kind of story are you writing? What happened to the girl turning into a doll and needing to get advice from a drunk fairy on how to turn back to normal? What happened to the dragon? You can't just leave it like that!"

"Well, that was just the beginning of the story," she explained slowly, scratching her cheek. "The dragon is there, he just can't help with this particular battle. It's something the main character has to confront on her own, you know?"

"Nobody should have to confront things alone," he said fiercely.

"Sometimes you have to though," she pointed out, shaking her head. "It's like taking your friend with you for a job interview, it just doesn't work."

"It doesn't sound like she's going to get a job so that means she can take a friend along with her. She should know that her friend is going to be there for her when it's all done. Wouldn't she do the same for her friend if she were in his boots? That's what friends are for!"

"You're very passionate about this."

Natsu shifted to face her, honesty written across his face that she didn't often see with such intensity to it. "Well, if you were the one in that situation, I would want to be there."

She smiled brightly, her face heating as she squeezed his fingers thankfully. "I would want you there, too. It's a lot nicer to have a friend around when things are bad than it is to face them alone." Lucy thought hard for a moment, unsure about her next words. "Your letters really helped me get through the days, I'm glad that you kept writing even when I didn't end up coming."

"You came eventually though, that's all that matters. We just got a head start on our friendship," he said, laughing. "Probably good too, because it would have been weirder to meet you after only knowing you like two weeks and having to be your friend."

"We were practically friends from the moment we met," she said, rolling her eyes.

Grinning, he nudged her side with his elbow. "Even though your dog ate one of my letters two weeks after I met you."

"I'm not going to be faulted for that when you're the one who stuck a package of ketchup in there because you wanted to find out if people were monitoring your mail," she scolded, flicking him lightly. "I've never seen a more baffled look on Virgo's face than the day she found Plue on the kitchen table, chewing on one of my letters."

"You were complaining that she was a robot."

The water splashed against his side as she lifted her knees, hiding her face from his view. "I was not!"

Natsu sniggered once, then cleared his throat and adopted a high-pitched, lilted impersonation of her voice that made her scowl from the inaccuracy. "'I thought my father could be expressionless, but the new maid my mother hired hasn't once flinched at anything. I almost considered pulling one of your pranks to see if she would react, but mom said no.' You seemed afraid of getting in trouble so I handled it for you."

She tilted her head as he spoke and then grew quite still the more he spoke. "How... how did you remember all of that?"

"I told you, I remember everything you write, especially the parts that made me laugh. I even remember the time you tried to make pasta for your dad and nearly burnt your own eyebrows off," he scoffed. "Although I remember that more because you failed at pasta with sauce. It's the easiest food to make!"

"Sorry we're not all future chefs," she retorted, recalling the memory as he said it. It had been only a few months since her mother died and it was her first attempt at breaching the chasm between her and her father - it was also the only one to end in such a disaster, though she wouldn't technically call it a failure considering it was the only plan that worked. He might have been scolding her for a good half an hour about kitchen safety, but at least he was talking to her rather than sending Virgo to punish her.

"I wouldn't even need to be chef to know how to make pasta, weirdo."

"Guess you'll be in charge of food from now on then," she teased, snorting when he nodded seriously.

They fell into a silence, but rather than the aching one that demanded words and tears, it was a comfortable quiet. The ache of the morning seemed faraway though the memory of it lingered in her puffy eyes and sun-burnt face.

She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. He stiffened slightly at the unexpected contact, but relaxed into it after a second of contemplation, resting his head on hers and slinging an arm around her gently. Water dripping down against her side, making her shirt clinging to her skin, but she ignored it, inching closer to him. "Thanks, Natsu," she muttered and received a warm squeeze in response.

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 **Thank you to all my reviews! I would tag you all, but I'm currently out of data till the 28th of June so pulling up two tabs is just unlikely to work. I do read each of them and though there are few, I love all the ones I get~**


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